Over the course of six weeks in February-March 2025, our Prevention Team facilitated the CATCH My Breath vaping prevention program with each 8th grade health class in the Gloucester County Public Schools. That means that 380 students learned about the negative consequences of vaping and the ways that e-cigarette companies target them with advertising, equipping them to make better decisions.

Our Prevention Team has found that the students are engaged when participating in the program, and that the content speaks to them because it shows youth around their ages with lived experience. While quite a few students know somebody who vapes, they are often still surprised by the information they are learning. Some have even reported sharing this information with their families. Our Prevention Team also shares vaping cessation resources with the schools for any youth who are interested in quitting or helping someone else quit vaping.

Based on student evaluations from the program:

• 43% learned that the “cloud” from an e-cigarette is NOT water vapor like they initially believed.
• 70% learned that you must be 21 years old (and not 18 years old) to lawfully purchase tobacco products.
• 20% learned that you can get addicted to nicotine even if you don’t use it every day.

CATCH My Breath is an evidence-based youth vaping prevention program developed by the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health and backed by research funded by the National Institutes of Health. For more information about the program, see the CATCH My Breath website.

Our program is made possible by a grant from the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth. We will be able to run the program from 2025-2027 thanks to their support.