The OurFutures Vaping eHealth intervention to prevent e-cigarette use among adolescent students in Australia: a cluster randomised controlled trial

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BACKGROUND: E-cigarette use among adolescents is a global public health concern. The efficacy of scalable prevention approaches is yet to be established. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of a school-based eHealth intervention (OurFutures Vaping) to prevent e-cigarette use among adolescents. METHODS: A two-arm cluster randomised controlled trial was conducted among year 7 and 8 students (12-14 years) in 40 secondary schools across three Australian states: New South Wales, Western Australia, and Queensland. Schools were randomly assigned (1:1) to OurFutures Vaping (a four-lesson, web-based skills and education programme) or an active control group (usual health education) by a biostatistician using the Blockrand function in R, stratified by state and school gender composition. All year 7 and 8 students who attended participating schools, were fluent in English, and provided consent were eligible to participate. Teachers, students, and researchers were not masked to allocation. The primary outcome was past 12-month e-cigarette use, assessed at the 12-month follow-up. Intention-to-treat analyses were conducted using generalised mixed effects regression, with random effects accounting for participants clustered within schools. The trial was prospectively registered with the Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12623000022662). FINDINGS: Between January and October, 2023, we recruited 49 schools (7653 students). Nine schools withdrew before baseline (three control; six intervention). A total of 40 schools with 5157 eligible students (2329 [46·0%] girls and 2600 [51·3%] boys; mean age 13·30 years [SD 0·60]) completed the baseline survey in the intervention (20 schools, 2449 students) and control (20 schools, 2708 students) groups. Compared with the control group, participants who received the intervention had reduced odds of past 12-month e-cigarette use (odds ratio 0·35 [95% CI 0·18-0·66], p=0·0013) 1 year after receiving the intervention, indicating a 65% reduction in the odds of use among students who received the intervention compared with the control. No adverse events were reported. INTERPRETATION: The OurFutures Vaping programme offers an efficacious demand-reduction approach to prevent e-cigarette use among adolescents. FUNDING: The Medical Research Future Fund and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council.

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