Almost a quarter of 15-year-olds in Kirklees have tried e-cigarettes, according to a new study.

The national What About YOUth? study found that 22.3% of 15-year-olds surveyed had dabbled with e-cigarettes, while roughly 4.5% used them regularly.

The survey also found that nearly 30% of 15-year-olds in Calderdale had tried the nicotine dispensing devices, while 5% used them regularly.

While using e-cigarettes may be less harmful than smoking tobacco, the long-term health effects of the devices are unknown.

Both Kirklees and Calderdale councils have pledged to tackle the use of electronic and conventional cigarettes among young people through education programmes.

A Kirklees spokesperson said: “We have recently carried out a focus group with a Kirklees school to understand why children and young people start smoking cigarettes and e-cigarettes and the results will be used to create new ways to support them.

“We are also working closely with Trading Standards officers who aim to make it more difficult for young people to access tobacco by targeting retailers and reducing the supply of illegal tobacco.

“The council advises against smoking both e-cigarettes or normal cigarettes and encourages people to seek help to stop.”

A Calderdale spokesperson added: “There simply isn’t enough evidence to suggest whether e- cigarettes are better or worse than tobacco. They are currently unregulated, vary from product to product and we don’t know what long-term impacts are of using them.

“The results of this survey will help us target our efforts in the communities where young people have a higher risk of using e-cigarettes or being smokers.

“The majority of teenagers in Calderdale don’t smoke, but our focus is on preventing them from ever starting.”

What About YOUth? 2014 (WAY 2014) collected local authority data about the behavioural patterns of 15-year-olds.

Nationally, the survey found that 24% of young people had smoked at least once, while 8% of young people were current smokers.

Some 15% of young people had tried other tobacco products, such as shisha pipes.

Just 3% of teens regularly used e-cigarettes, while a further 16% had tried them.

Those who were smokers were most likely to also use e-cigarettes, with almost a quarter of regular smokers (24%) and a fifth of occasional smokers (21%) currently using e-cigarettes, compared to 1% of non-smokers.