“Smoking & Health” Turns 50 — Hashtags of the Week (HOTW): (Week of February 24, 2014)

It's pretty interesting that there have been so many different reports from the Surgeon General's Office, but if people simply say, "the Surgeon General's report" they mean the first one, from 1964, on Smoking and Health. I'm glad to see that the SGO is taking advantage of the 50th anniversary to release a new and …

E-cigarette poisonings & more in the new edition of Public Health Law News

From the CDC's Office for State, Tribal, Local, & Territorial Support: The new edition of Public Health Law News reprints an article from USA Today on the rise in reports of poisonings in children by e-cigarettes. Other stories include reports from the states on changes in public health laws and an interview with Chester Antone, …

World No Tobacco Day

May 31 is the World Health Organization's (WHO) official World No Tobacco Day.  According to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a comprehensive ban of all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship is required. According to WHO, tobacco kills nearly six million people every year, of which more than 600 000 are non-smokers exposed to second-hand …

New tobacco rules in Europe

From the New York Times: Health warnings should cover 75 percent of cigarette packs but governments should also have leeway to require plain packaging, the European Commission said Wednesday. The commission’s proposal would also ban cigarettes containing large quantities of flavorings including menthol and vanilla, restrict the sale of slimmer cigarettes and maintain a ban …

Text messages help smokers kick the habit

From NPR's Shots blog: Some good news about texting: A review of studies published by the Cochrane Collaboration finds that smokers trying to quit the habit are helped in a big way by supportive messages sent via text. We all know it's really hard to quit smoking. Dr. Pamela Brar, an internist in private practice …

New edition of health Communication Digest available

  Seth Noar introduces an Audience-Channel-Message-Evaluation (ACME) framework for health communication campaigns. Three studies highlight the negative impact of unhealthy mass media messages. Smoking is the focus of all three studies. Glantz et al. observe a substantial increase in onscreen smoking in youth-rated movies. Shandel et al. find that exposure to prosmoking messages is associated with acute changes in future smoking …

Tobacco: Uphill battle for antismoking campaigns in poor and middle-income countries

From the New York Times: Despite expensive antismoking campaigns, 41 percent of men in poor and middle-income countries still smoke and more young women are starting to, according to a major new survey of global tobacco use. The survey, based on 248,452 interviews in 14 countries and published in The Lancet on Thursday, found that …

For teenage smokers, removing the allure of the pack

From "Fixes" at the New York Times: Remember teenage smoking? It’s been edged out by teenage obesity as the health concern of the moment. States are cutting programsto prevent the former while establishing programs to combat the latter. We shouldn’t forget about it. Last year, 18.7 percent of high school seniors were smokers — just …

Tobacco prevention & control strategies in Washington state

From the CDC's Prevention Research Centers: Researchers from the University of Washington PRC and their partners at health departments in Washington State and Oregon assessed health care costs and smoking rates associated with three tobacco-control strategies for the state of Washington: A comprehensive tobacco prevention and control program in Washington State (2000-2011); Washington’s statewide ban …

Making the next generation tobacco free

A new report, Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults: A Report of the Surgeon General, has just been released. Read the full report here, the Executive Summary here, or visit this web site for more information.