Goal:
Vaping (e-cigarette use) has become a major health concern among young adults. This project aims to develop a smartphone-based program to help people ages 18–25 reduce and quit vaping.
Our goal is to create a smart, personalized support system that delivers help right when it’s needed most.
What We Are Doing
This project has three main parts:
1. Understanding vaping in real life
We will study when and why young adults vape. This includes looking at patterns such as how often and how much they vape, and what situations increase the likelihood of vaping — such as cravings, stress, mood, or location.
2. Building a personalized support app
Using what we learn, we will design a smartphone app that sends supportive messages during high-risk moments — for example, when someone feels a strong urge to vape.
3. Testing how it works in daily life
We will evaluate whether the program is practical, acceptable, and helpful when used in real-world settings.
Why This Matters
Young adults are one of the groups most affected by the vaping epidemic. By providing support exactly when someone is most likely to vape, this project aims to offer a new and more effective way to help young people quit.
This study is one of the first to test a “just-in-time” approach — meaning support is delivered in the moment, based on a person’s current situation. The program uses:
Brief real-time check-ins about vaping context
Advanced data analysis to recognize high-risk patterns
Personalized support shaped by user feedback
By combining technology and behavioral science, we hope to create a smarter, more responsive tool that adapts to each person’s changing needs and helps reduce vaping and its harmful health effects.