OBJECTIVES: Vaping is associated with various medical consequences, including e-cigarette or vaping-associated lung injury (EVALI). In response to a surge in EVALI cases in October 2019, the CDC introduced coding guidance to proxy EVALI in an attempt to capture and track patients with this rapidly evolving disease. Subsequently, in April 2020, an emergency code for Vaping Use Disorder (VUD) (U07.0) was introduced to enhance the characterization of these injuries. This study aims to compare and profile the population of patients with the VUD and CDC proxy codes.

METHODS: A retrospective cohort study utilized Komodo Health's Healthcare Map of open claims data and compared patients with CDC proxy codes from 10/2019 to 03/2020 to those with U07.0 from 4/2020 to 10/2020. The analysis included all patients, resulting in 167,375 with CDC proxy codes and 9,391 with VUD. Demographic characteristics were delineated by age, gender, and race/ethnicity, with significance assessed using the Chi-square test.

RESULTS: VUD patients were significantly younger (40% under 25) compared to CDC proxy code patients (14.5%, p<0.00001), with a mean age of 38.9 years versus 58.4 years (p<0.00001). VUD patients were more likely male (47.4% versus 53.8%, p<0.00001) and less likely Black (16.3% versus 11.0%, p<0.00001).

CONCLUSIONS: The CDC proxy codes captured a significantly larger population over the same time as the VUD code. Patients diagnosed with VUD were younger, more likely to be male and less likely to be Black, reflecting other studies in the literature and suggesting the emergency code better reflects the population at risk for vaping disorders. Implementation of emergency codes could facilitate more precise tracking of emerging trends, supporting real-world evidence initiatives that address social determinants of health. This specificity could enable public health researchers to target research and interventions more effectively toward vulnerable populations.