Tobacco Use Patterns

The use of combustible tobacco products (e.g., cigarettes, cigars, pipe, bidis, kreteks, and hookah) among adults remains widespread around the world. Unless dramatic progress is made diminishing the initiation and increasing cessation of combustible tobacco product use, a billion preventable deaths will occur in the 21st century [1]. These deaths will be accompanied by unimaginable human suffering and unaffordable economic loss from both preventable healthcare expenditures and loss of productivity from early death and disease. Health risks not only impact the smoker, but also hundreds of millions of individuals who inhale secondhand smoke from combustible tobacco products. In addition to the risks associated with smoking tobacco products, there are important concerns associated with the use of noncombustible tobacco products (e.g., chew, dip, snus, Gutka, and Ikmik). Concerns include both direct health effects from high-toxicant products, particularly in Southern Asia that account for the majority of global noncombustible use and the impact of dual use of noncombustible products with smoked tobacco products [2, 3]. This is a pattern being seen in youth, young adults [4, 5], and adults in the United States (as in the paper of R. McMillen et al. " Use of emerging tobacco products in the United States "), potentially increasing initiation and prolonging smoking. In order to successfully tackle the immense challenges ahead, it is critical that public health workers and others committed to eradicating the harm caused by the tobacco epidemic have a full understanding of what is actually happening. Questions need to be answered such as: How are tobacco use patterns evolving? How are changes in the design of tobacco products impacting health outcomes? How are emerging tobacco products being marketed? and, How is their use impacting the use of combustible tobacco products? Which tobacco control policies and interventions work for different populations and use patterns? Few health risks have received as much attention from researchers and policy makers as the use of tobacco products. Articles recently published in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health can inform health policy decisions in several ways: by providing information on specific populations who use these products, by targeting interventions to products and users, and by identifying and characterizing emerging products developed and marketed by the tobacco industry. Scientific research, surveillance, and evaluation are valuable tools for informing health policy decisions because they can identify the introduction of new products, offer insight as to the prevalence of use …