Our World in Data on the public health benefits of vaping

By Kristof Redei @ 2025-11-12T10:11 (+27)

This is a linkpost to https://ourworldindata.org/vaping-vs-smoking-health-risks

Hannah Ritchie at Our World in Data has written a concise and clear summary of the evidence for the claim that vaping provides a large net benefit to public health, while the public perception in many countries is exactly the opposite. Recommended for anyone interested in global health as smoking remains one of the top causes of early death in the world. Even some EA-associated organizations still favor more restrictions on vaping and perpetuate some of the misperceptions, such as the claim that vaping is "extremely harmful to health."

The article's two key claims:

(1) Vaping is much safer than smoking:

If vaping is just as bad as cigarettes, then substituting one for the other would not be positive for public health, or for individuals who smoke.

Research suggests that this is not the case. While we can’t say that vaping carries zero risk, the evidence clearly indicates that it is much less harmful than smoking.

(2) Vaping is the most effective tool for people who smoke and are looking to stop:

The majority of smokers say that they would like to quit. Most have tried to, often several times. The problem is that letting go of an addictive habit is hard.

This is why I wrote this article: Research suggests that e-cigarettes are the most effective quitting tool.

If you're interested in more detail, I've also written forum posts exploring the safety of noncombustible nicotine products more broadly, their effectiveness for cessation, and the severe misperceptions among the public, people who smoke, and even medical professionals around the topic.