Document is current

Article History

Received: 2 April 2026

Revised: 1 June 2026

Accepted: 16 June 2026

First Online: 29 June 2026

Declarations

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: Anas Ali Alhur, Isaac Olushola Ogunkola, Najim Z. Alshahrani, Don Eliseo Lucero-Prisno III, Usman A. Adeniran, Giulio Geraci, and Venera Tomaselli declare no conflicts of interest. Yusuff Adebayo Adebisi previously received funding through the Tobacco Harm Reduction Scholarship and the Kevin Molloy Fellowship, both awarded by Knowledge Action Change (KAC), UK, an independent public health organisation. KAC receives funding from Global Action to End Smoking (GA), an independent US nonprofit 501(c)(3) grantmaking organisation that supports health and science research, cessation education, and agricultural transformation initiatives. Riccardo Polosa is a full professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Catania, Italy, and Medical Director of the Institute for Internal Medicine at the same university. He has received competitive grants from the European Union and government sources, including U-BIOPRED, AIR-PROM, the Integral Rheumatology & Immunology Specialists Network (IRIS), and several PNRR grants (PNRR 3277/2021, PNRR 341/2022, and PNRR 411/2021) funded by the European Commission through NextGenerationEU. He has also received investigator-initiated grants from GA, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, CV Therapeutics, NeuroSearch A/S, Sandoz, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Boehringer Ingelheim, Novartis, Arbi Group Srl, Duska Therapeutics, and Forest Laboratories. He is the founder of the Center for Tobacco Prevention and Treatment (CPCT) and the Center of Excellence for the Acceleration of Harm Reduction (CoEHAR) at the University of Catania. He has received consultancy fees from Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Duska Therapeutics, Forest Laboratories, CV Therapeutics, Sermo Inc., GRG Health, Clarivate Analytics, Guidepoint Expert Network, and GLG Group. He receives textbook royalties from Elsevier and EDRA. He also serves as Chair of the European Technical Committee for Standardization on “Requirements and test methods for emissions of electronic cigarettes” (CEN/TC 437; WG4) and as scientific advisor to the non-profit Foundation RIDE2Med. This research was conducted independently and was not linked to any prior funding source.

: The Scottish Health Survey is conducted under ethical approval from the Research Ethics Committee. Individual participant consent was obtained at the time of the survey. The present study involved secondary analysis of anonymised data and did not require additional ethical approval.