Entering a New Era in Tobacco Control Research: NCI Cancer Bulletin for November 3, 2009
With the enactment of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act on June 22, the United States entered a new era in tobacco control and prevention. . . .
This issue of the NCI Cancer Bulletin highlights several important tobacco control research studies supported by NCI. In the largest trial of its kind to date, researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center found that telephone counseling using motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral approaches significantly improved 6-month cessation rates in older teens. Given that 20 percent of American high school seniors smoke cigarettes, and that few strategies have been effective at promoting cessation among teen smokers, this finding is very significant. This issue also highlights a study of mobile phone technology provided to DC Tobacco Quitline callers and the expansion of Smokefree.gov, including new links to social media, such as Facebook, that take advantage of interactive Web technologies to reach new audiences for smoking cessation.
NCI’s tobacco control research cannot be limited to the United States, where, as in most high-income countries, tobacco use is slowly declining. By 2030, global mortality from tobacco use is expected to rise to 8 million deaths per year. About 80 percent of those deaths will occur in low- and middle-income countries, where tobacco use is still increasing. Research will be critical to averting this global epidemic, which threatens to reverse hard-won improvements in global health and which economically developing countries with overburdened health care systems can ill afford.
