Click through the buttons below to learn about youth e-cigarette use.

ABOUT

This project uses the annual National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to examine e-cigarette use by youth. While this project does not provide policy proposals, it highlights the growth and prevalence of e-cigarette consumption by youth. Most importantly, it shows that many students are using e-cigarettes on their own and not as a substitute or method for quitting smoking. While JUUL Labs maintains that their product is made exclusively for adult smokers, the company has been scrutinized for its youth-targeted advertising.

METHODOLOGY

This interactive graphic was made under the advising of Eric Field as part of an independent study to learn and explore visualization methods. The pixel-matrix interactive graphic was inspired by FiveThirtyEight's 'Gun Deaths in America' visualization. This e-cigarette visual is made entirely with D3.js.

The NYTS datasets from 2018 and 2014 were cleaned to exclude entries that had blanks for relevant questions about e-cigarette use, combustible cigarette use, and characteristics such as sex and age. A random sample of 15,000 entries was taken from both years to make visual comparison feasible. Because of the thrown-out blank responses, percentages here may not match up with information noted elsewhere by others.