Young people’s perspectives on vape access and policy: a qualitative study in Sheffield, England

Objectives

This qualitative study aimed to explore young people’s experiences of accessing e-cigarettes (vapes) and to understand their perspectives on current and proposed UK vaping-related policy.

Study design

Pragmatic qualitative study using two participatory workshops with five members of the Sheffield Youth Cabinet, aged 11 to 17, in Sheffield, England, March 2025. None of the participants reported vaping.

Methods

Topic guides were informed by Penchansky and Thomas’s five dimensions of access (availability, accessibility, affordability, acceptability and accommodation). Workshops incorporated individual reflection and discussion. Data was audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using Miles and Huberman’s thematic analysis, combining deductive coding using the access framework with inductive identification of emergent themes.

Results

Five interconnected themes explained young people’s experiences of vape access and their ideas about access-related policy: (1) A Flawed Information Environment , where knowledge gaps and mistrust of official sources made vaping appear acceptable; (2) The Social Normalisation of Vaping , driven by peer behaviour, marketing and public visibility; (3) The Appeal of Convenient Vaping , with product design enabling discreet and frequent use; (4) The Permissive and Affordable Retail Environment , characterised by lax age-verification, proximity to schools and low cost; and (5) Reframing Vapes as a Cessation Tool , where participants suggested positioning vapes more clearly as cessation tools rather than consumer products. These themes reflected overlapping dimensions of access, showing that affordability, availability, accessibility, acceptability and accommodation interact rather than functioning independently.

Conclusions

Participants described access to vapes as shaped by overlapping social, environmental and product-related factors that make vaping easy and appealing, which suggests that access is unlikely to be reduced by any single measure. They supported stronger controls on retail and marketing, but saw vapes as a way for adults to stop smoking. On that basis they opposed restricting flavours and proposed that vapes be positioned as cessation products.