The Potential Impact of E-cigarettes on the Life-Years Lost from Conventional Smoking in the Russian Federation

Abstract

This study analyses the potential impact of e-cigarettes on the death toll of cigarette smoking in the Russian Federation by working under a variety of assumptions pertaining to how much vaping might affect smoking cessation and initiation, and its adverse impacts on health in comparison to conventional smoking. Within this study, each combination of these assumptions generates a single vaping scenario (210 in total). A dynamic population simulation model, specifically for the Russian Federation, that is tailoured to tobacco control policy analysis, is built for estimation purposes. Considering the toll of smoking on cumulative life-years saved via the inclusion of vaping across a period of 80 years, the simulation analysis produces positive results in 88.1% of e-cigarette scenarios, ranging from − 3.3 million to 38.5 million life-years saved. In relative terms, the estimated life-years saved from vaping varies from − 1.6 to 18.6% of the predicted life-years lost from smoking. Most of the model scenarios involve a significant number of individuals who stopped smoking in favour of vaping. These results suggest that vaping has great potential to reduce the prevalence of smoking and the related death toll in the Russian Federation.