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March 19, 2025
Connie the Clever Cockie Update
Just a brief update from me this month. I really had to share an important new paper from the Next Generation Youth Wellbeing Study, led by Prof Sanda Eades AO. You might recall that Prof Eades was the inaugural winner of the Tom Calma Award at the Oceania Tobacco Control Conference held in the Gold Coast last October. This award recognised the impact of her work in tobacco control, which has transformed public health in Australia.
The most recent paper from this study describes several protective factors associated with not vaping among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth which can inform the activities of community programs like TIS.
The Next Generation Youth Wellbeing study follows a group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 10 to 24 years of age from urban, rural and remote communities in Central Australia, New South Wales and Western Australia, tracking their health and wellbeing – including tobacco use – through interviews, focus groups and surveys.
Key Findings
Most young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 16-24 years (75%) have never vaped. Most respondents (82%) lived in smoke-free homes. Young people living in Central Australia were more likely to have never vaped compared to those living in urban and regional areas of WA and NSW. This probably reflects the wider availability of vaping products in non-remote areas at the time of data collection. Never vaping was associated with:
- never having smoked or used cannabis
- having non-smoking friends
- being currently employed and/or expecting to be working full-time in the next 5 years
- higher income (among those currently working)
- good mental health
- no personal or indirect experiences of racism or discrimination
- no negative interactions with the police or criminal justice system
You can read my in-depth review of this paper on the Tobacco Control News page of the TIS website.
