Assuming e-cigarettes are equal to cigarettes could lead to misguided research and policy initiatives, a report of the Northwestern University (NU) Medicine said.

"Comparing cigarettes to e-cigarettes can give us a false sense of what dangers exist because it misses the gap in understanding how people use them and how they can make people dependent," said first author Matthew Olonoff, a doctoral student at NU Feinberg School of Medicine.