My understanding of cigarettes is that while nicotine is responsible for the addictive effects of tobacco, it is a very minor contributor to the overall health

My understanding of cigarettes is that while nicotine is responsible for the addictive effects of tobacco, it is a very minor contributor to the overall health impact of smoking, which are mostly the other tobacco ingredients, primarily particulates. So while you may consume more nicotine, which has some deleterious effects, the overall risk is literally orders of magnitude lower. You'd need to consume 100s of vapes to get enough nicotine to have health risks on par with what you get from a cigarette.