RESEARCH ALERT
Some vapes use added chemicals to create a cold or icy feeling. New research has raised concerns about three of them: WS-23, WS-3 and WS-5. We do not yet know how common they are in Wales.
Young People & Prevention / Our track record
Our youth prevention track record
Young people and prevention are not a new strand of ASH Wales’s work. We have spent years working directly with young people, schools, youth professionals and partners across Wales – from stop-smoking support and outreach to national youth research, prevention resources and emerging-product monitoring.
Last reviewed: 27th September 2026
WHY THIS MATTERS
Our prevention work is built on years of youth engagement, not a single campaign.
That history helps us spot recurring issues, understand how products and pressures change, and build support that reflects what young people and professionals are actually seeing.
A long-running youth focus
12,500
young people engaged by The Filter over five years.
250
events where The Filter engaged directly with young people.
800
youth-work professionals trained through The Filter.
These are historical programme figures from ASH Wales records. They describe delivery and reach, not proof that one programme caused population smoking rates to fall.
How the work has developed
2013-2018 · The Filter
ASH Wales ran a dedicated youth stop-smoking and prevention project focused on teenagers, including harder-to-reach communities. The programme combined direct engagement, out-of-school workshops, professional training and cessation support.
Youth insight & surveys
ASH Wales continued to gather direct evidence from young people about smoking, vaping, access, products and influence. More recent youth survey work engaged over 12,000 young people on their vaping experiences and informed Public Health Wales’s Incident Response Group.
Schools & youth settings
Our work expanded into school and youth-setting resources, webinars, staff guidance, smoke-free school activity and practical materials for conversations about smoking, vaping and nicotine.
Nicofiends
Nicofiends brings current prevention work together around products, pressure, feelings, marketing and access – helping young people notice what is influencing them before nicotine use becomes established.
Emerging-product monitoring
ASH Wales now combines research, public-health intelligence, regulation and frontline signals to track new nicotine and vape products without mistaking isolated reports for prevalence.
Youth evidence in Wales
We bring current Welsh prevalence data, ASH Wales research and wider evidence together, clearly separating Wales findings from GB or international evidence.
What we’ve learned from doing this work
Listen before assuming
Young people’s experiences can show us where language, access, products and pressures are changing. Youth voice can identify questions and signals – it should not be turned into a prevalence estimate unless the research design supports that.
Prevention is more than health facts
Knowledge matters, but so do confidence, social norms, media literacy, access, stress, product appeal and the ability to handle pressure.
Support current users too
A prevention programme still needs a route for young people who already smoke, vape or use nicotine. They need useful support, not a message that they have failed.
Separate signals from proof
A product in a school, a seizure, a social-media trend or a testing result can tell us what to investigate. It does not automatically tell us how common that behaviour is across Wales.
What that expertise looks like now
Today, ASH Wales’s youth prevention work spans evidence, education, support and early warning. The aim is not to create fear around every new product. It is to give young people and the adults around them clear information early enough to act sensibly.
About the historical figures
The Filter figures on this page come from ASH Wales’s archived programme records. The project ran from 2013 to 2018. Historical reach figures are presented as evidence of programme delivery and experience, not as an evaluation claim about population-level impact.
The more recent figure of over 12,000 young people surveyed comes from ASH Wales programme records describing youth vaping research that informed Public Health Wales’s Incident Response Group.