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Implications: The electronic cigarette (ECIG) research community faces several challenges when it comes to regulatory science; not only is the ECIG market changing at a rapid pace, but the terms used by researchers, health organizations, ECIG users, and ECIG manufacturers/distributors to describe devices are inconsistent. These discrepancies make it difficult to advance science and develop regulations. Although researchers have used “generations” to categorize ECIG device types based on various characteristics, with the constantly evolving ECIG market, it is unclear where one “generation” of devices ends and the next begins.

Aims This study aims to identify adolescent patterns of polytobacco use and measure transitions between patterns over time. Design Longitudinal analysis using data derived from waves 1–4 (2013–18) of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study. Transitions in tobacco use patterns were examined via latent transition analysis, and then, socio‐demographic characteristics were used to predict transitions via logistic regression. Setting United States. Participants Participants included 975 adolescents who used at least one tobacco product at any wave (W1 mean age = 13.29, standard deviation = 0.86; W4 54.2% male; 54.5% white, 25.9% Hispanic). Measurements Measurements included past 30‐day use of cigarettes, electronic cigarettes (e‐cigs), traditional cigars, cigarillos, filtered cigars, snus, smokeless tobacco (SLT) or hookah. Findings Six latent classes were identified. Cigarette users (43.5–58.8%) and SLT users (50.8–79.6%) tended to persist in their use over time. E‐cig users began to probably transition to non‐users (80.0%), but became more likely to persist in this use over time (31.1%). Non‐users at a given wave were most likely to transition to e‐cig users (8.5–43.7%) or cigarette users (6.7–28.6%). Cigarillo/poly‐users and hookah/poly‐users displayed more variable transition patterns. Adolescents were more likely to transition to non‐use (versus become/remain e‐cig users) if they were older (cigarette users, SLT users), younger (e‐cig users), other race (SLT users), male (SLT users) or had less‐educated parents (SLT users) compared with their counterparts. Hispanic (versus white) cigarette users were more likely to transition to non‐users than to persist in this use. Conclusions Among adolescents in the United States, patterns of tobacco use characterized by the use, mainly, of single, specific products appear to be stable, particularly by late adolescence. In contrast, patterns characterized by polytobacco use appear to be more variable and may represent experimentation without specialization.

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