Cigarette smoking among U.S. teenagers has reached a historic low. But new research suggests the Latino youth vaping story is more complicated—and more divided—than the national numbers reveal.
For decades, the public-health fight over youth tobacco centered on cigarettes.
That fight appears to be producing results. In 2025, just 1.4% of U.S. middle- and high-school students reported currently smoking cigarettes, a historic low.
But nicotine has not disappeared from American classrooms. It has changed form.
E-cigarettes remained the most commonly used tobacco product among U.S. youth in 2025. About 5.2% of middle- and high-school students—roughly 1.44 million young people—reported current use.
For Latino youth, however, the national number conceals an important question: Are all Latino teenagers experiencing the vaping epidemic in the same way?
The answer appears to be no.
A 2025 analysis of 2022–23 National Youth Tobacco Survey data found substantial differences among Hispanic youth depending on their reported origin. Current e-cigarette use was 14.0% among Puerto Rican or Cuban youth, compared with 7.6% among Mexican-origin youth. The rate was 8.4% among youth of other Hispanic origins and 9.5% among those reporting multiple Hispanic origins.
The Puerto Rican/Cuban rate was therefore nearly twice the rate among Mexican-origin students.
That difference is striking. It is also not fully explained by the available data.
Latino Is Not One Category
The United States often talks about “Hispanic” or “Latino” youth as if they constitute a single population. But the category encompasses people with roots in many countries, along with different migration histories, family structures, cultures and socioeconomic circumstances.
Those differences can matter for health.
The NYTS analysis included more than 13,000 Hispanic middle- and high-school students. Researchers adjusted their analysis for demographic characteristics and still found higher odds of current e-cigarette use among Puerto Rican/Cuban youth than among Mexican-origin youth.
The researchers say more work is needed to understand what is driving that difference.
Language Doesn’t Explain It
One possible explanation is acculturation—the process of navigating U.S. culture alongside one’s cultural heritage.
But language spoken at home did not provide a simple answer.
Nearly 70% of Hispanic students in the study spoke a language other than English at home. Yet home language itself was not significantly associated with e-cigarette use after adjustment.
In other words, simply speaking Spanish—or another language—at home does not appear to explain why some Latino groups report more vaping.
The reality appears to be more complicated.
Culture, Family and Peer Pressure
Other research provides clues.
A study using English- and Spanish-language focus groups with Hispanic youth and young adults found that experiences with vaping differed according to how participants navigated Hispanic and U.S. cultures.
For some bicultural participants, curiosity and peer pressure were important reasons for vaping. Less-acculturated participants more often described family disapproval, stigma and concern about the effect of vaping on their families as deterrents.
Family can therefore be an important protective factor.
But it can also create another challenge: some young people described vaping as attractive partly because it could be concealed from parents.
That is significant for parents who grew up thinking about tobacco primarily as cigarettes. A cigarette produces smoke and a recognizable smell. A small vape device can be used quickly and discreetly.
The Gender and Age Divide
There are other differences within the Latino population.
In the 2022–23 analysis, current e-cigarette use among Hispanic students was 10.2% among females versus 7.2% among males. Use also increased with grade level, from 6.2% in grades 7–8 to 11.3% in grades 11–12.
The pattern suggests that “Latino youth vaping” is not a single phenomenon.
Age matters. Gender matters. Hispanic origin matters.
The study also found substantially higher vaping among Hispanic students identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual than among heterosexual Hispanic students—14.9% versus 7.1%.
That points to a broader lesson: a prevention message aimed simply at “Latino teenagers” may miss young people whose experiences and risk factors are very different.
The Question Researchers Still Can’t Answer
The most important finding may be the one researchers cannot yet explain.
Why are Puerto Rican and Cuban youth reporting substantially higher vaping rates than Mexican-origin youth?
The study establishes the difference but does not establish precisely why it exists. Researchers call for additional research and culturally tailored prevention strategies for different Hispanic populations.
That is a very different story from simply saying, “Latino teens vape.”
A Mexican American teenager in Los Angeles, a Puerto Rican teenager in Orlando and a Cuban American teenager in Miami may all be classified as Hispanic in a national survey. Their experiences with family, community, culture, media and tobacco, however, may be very different.
The data suggest those differences deserve attention.
The cigarettes may be disappearing. The Latino nicotine story is not over.
