UK vaping policy modelling: key findings from the SPIRE project

The UK is currently undergoing a landmark shift in tobacco and vaping regulation. Legislative measures like the 'smokefree generation' and the 2025 ban on disposable vapes represent a significant change in the government's approach to tobacco and e-cigarette products.

Computer models are frequently used to help policymakers evaluate the effectiveness of interventions, predict how different policies might impact specific groups of people and determine who should be targeted with new regulations, but the UK currently lacks a dedicated vaping policy model. Furthermore, we lack a clear overview of the data available to build one.

The SPIRE project (Scoping of Policy Impacts for Regulating E-cigarettes) was established to address this. Led by researchers at the University of Sheffield and University College London (UCL), SPIRE aimed to identify the specific requirements for a UK vaping policy model, map out existing data that could feed into the model, and identify what additional data are needed.

This blog post gives an overview of what we found. The full, peer-reviewed findings and detailed list of modelling requirements can be viewed on NIHR Open Research.

What we did

Our work was divided into four key areas:

Stakeholder workshops: We held sessions with researchers, policymakers and the public to agree on what a useful model should include and set out important modelling requirements so that we could identify relevant evidence.
Evidence reviews: We reviewed existing modelling studies and datasets, and filled in evidence gaps with focused literature reviews.
Data dictionary: We developed a freely available 'data dictionary' – an online guide to the most useful UK survey data for vaping policy modelling. This can be updated as new survey questions are developed.
Recommendations: We made clear recommendations about vaping policy modelling, data use and data collection for such a model.

Throughout the project we have shared our work openly (including review protocols, the affiliations of our stakeholders, our workshop documents, the data dictionary and ethics documents) on the Open Science Framework.

Key requirements for a vaping policy model

To develop our recommendations, we drew on findings from the workshops and the PHEM-B Toolbox – a set of methods for incorporating the influences of behaviour into health economic models.

Because policymakers need to make decisions about vaping policy very soon, we divided our findings into essential requirements (for 'Version 1' of any model) and desirable requirements (elements that can be integrated at a later stage).

To build a robust UK vaping policy model, we identified three core areas where evidence is essential:

Transitions and interactions: How individuals move between tobacco smoking and vaping, or both, over their lifetime. The model must account for diverse groups of people, recognising that factors like age, socioeconomic status, and mental health conditions significantly influence how a person responds to a policy.
Policy impacts: How price (e.g. the Vaping Products Duty), place (e.g. new retailer registration or licensing rules) and prescriptive (e.g. regulating product contents and appearance) policies will affect smoking and vaping behaviours.
Relative health harms: The health impacts associated with vaping compared with tobacco smoking, and the harms of vaping compared to never smoking or vaping.

To build a more comprehensive model over time, additional data that could be added in the future include the environmental and retail impact of vapes, the influence of social networks on tobacco smoking and vape use, and how industry responses or illicit markets might affect policy success.

For the full list of modelling and data requirements for the first UK vaping policy model, see our article on NIHR Open Research.

Key data available which could be used in a simulation model of vaping policies

Our search for data aimed to see if the UK has the evidence needed for these complex models. The data dictionary of surveys that include information about tobacco smoking and/or vaping currently includes:

34 population surveys (i.e. data on individual behaviour)
9 market datasets (i.e. data on product sales)
5 government data sources (i.e. data on monitoring and enforcement of vaping regulations)

When looking at how well the existing UK surveys cover specific groups, we found varying levels of detail:

Socioeconomic position: 76% of surveys
Self-reported mental health status: 50% of surveys
Clinical mental health diagnosis: 32% of surveys

The data is spread across different age groups which is vital for understanding the interaction between vaping and smoking for young people starting to vape, and older adults using vapes to quit smoking:

8–18 year olds: 30% of surveys
16 or older: 33% of surveys
18 or older: 18% of surveys

Data on behaviour

Our research identified 25 UK studies specifically assessing the social, economic, and psychological factors that drive vaping behaviour – these studies consider how things like peer influence, affordability, and mental health status affect a person's decision to start or stop vaping.

We also found a wealth of UK studies on how people move between tobacco smoking and vaping (e.g. using vapes to quit smoking), but these behaviours have not yet been modelled together in the UK context. To create an effective policy tool, we need to stop looking at tobacco smoking and vaping in isolation and start modelling them as a connected system.

What data still needs to be collected?

Our research suggests that we still need more evidence to be collected on:

The impact of vape policies on vaping and smoking behaviours in adults and young people (such as the 2025 disposable vape ban).
The health harms of vaping for people who have never smoked, and longer-term evidence on the harms of vaping.
Illegal vape use and its impact.
Industry responses to new policies and regulations.

We recommend targeted studies and better co-ordination across research and policy to build stronger, more useful evidence for future regulations.

Next steps

We have applied for further funding to develop the first UK vaping policy model, with a particular focus on price-based, place-based, and prescriptive policies. This is an ambitious programme of work which will follow the recommendations set out in this project.