Date

12-5-2019

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Vaping has become an epidemic among high school aged youth as increases in adolescent vaping from 2017 to 2018 were the largest ever recorded in the past 43 years for any adolescent substance use outcome in the United States. Since vaping is a relatively new trend, more research is needed to understand this issue. The purpose of this study was to investigate parents’ attitude towards teens in grades 6-12 vaping and to explore what factors impact their perception of it. Parents of children who are in grades 6-12 were invited to complete a brief survey using the platform Qualtrics. 57 participants were recruited through schools, public locations and social media pages. Descriptive and bivariate analysis were performed using SPSS. The results indicated that 70% of parents surveyed did not know about the new Massachusetts State Laws regarding youth Tobacco Consumption. It was also discovered that although parents disapprove of their children vaping and smoking cigarettes they were less likely to strongly disagree in regard to vaping compared to smoking cigarettes. Additionally, the child’s gender also plays a role in regard to parental perception of vaping as parents were more likely to strongly disagree with their sons vaping over their daughters. Parents who smoke cigarettes themselves were also significantly less likely to strongly disagree regarding their children smoking cigarettes. These results suggest that more education needs to be provided to parents and their children as well as significant policy change regarding youth vaping and tobacco consumption.

Department

Social Work

Thesis Comittee

Dr. Jing Tan, Thesis Advisor

Dr. Kathy Bailey, Committee Member

Dr. Jibril Solomon, Committee Member

Copyright and Permissions

Original document was submitted as an Honors Program requirement. Copyright is held by the author.

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