The number of people visiting Virginia emergency departments who say they vape as part of the intake process has more than doubled in the last four years, according to a new data analysis from the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association.
In 2020, 23,630 patients who visited emergency rooms said they vape. In 2023, over 49,000 said they vape — a 108.9% increase over the three years.
The information is collected as part of the diagnostic process when someone visits an emergency department, according to Julian Walker, the group’s vice president of communications.
It’s a trend that state health officials are monitoring to identify patterns in the community and help anticipate what medical needs may arise among specific populations.
“Those trends are things that are percolating and emerging in the population,” Walker said. “And when things are bubbling up in the population, it’s also going to be manifested in the patient population that ends up seeking medical care, whether it’s in an outpatient setting, or in an inpatient setting (or) in emergency department setting in a hospital.”
While the number of patients who say they vape or use electronic cigarettes is rising, the number of patients visiting Virginia emergency departments who say they use traditional tobacco products, such as cigarettes or chewing tobacco, fell about 25% over four years.
“It may indicate that some traditional or conventional tobacco users have switched over from smoking cigarettes or chewing tobacco to using e-cigarettes,” Walker said. “We would need to do some deeper research and data analysis to see if there is truly a causal relationship, because it may just be correlated, but it may not be causal.”
The data analysis uses information from the VHHA database and includes information from the first quarter of 2020 through the fourth quarter of 2023.
“It’s important for the public to be aware of the trends,” Walker said. “Whether it’s having conversations with their children, or teachers and other folks in the community and being on the lookout for these things. There is medical research and data that indicates that these products can have negative or harmful health implications.”
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