Smoking was strongly associated with adverse childhood experiences. Primary prevention of adverse childhood experiences and improved treatment of exposed children could reduce smoking among both adolescents and adults.

Major weight gain is strongly related to smoking cessation, but it occurs in only a minority of those who stop smoking. Weight gain is not likely to negate the health benefits of smoking cessation, but its cosmetic effects may interfere with attempts to quit. Effective methods of weight control are therefore needed for smokers trying to quit.

No abstract

In 2015 alcohol use and tobacco smoking use between them cost the human population more than a quarter of a billion disability-adjusted life years, with illicit drugs costing further tens of millions. Europeans suffered proportionately more, but in absolute terms the mortality rate was greatest in low- and middle-income countries with large populations and where the quality of data was more limited. Better standardized and rigorous methods for data collection, collation and reporting are needed to assess more accurately the geographical and temporal trends in substance use and its disease burden.

The present study attempted to identify predictors of smoking cessation in a cohort of cigarette smokers followed over 13 years. Data are reported on 6,603 persons who resided in one of 20 U.S. communities involved in the National Cancer Institute's Community Intervention Trial for Smoking Cessation (COMMIT) study, were current smokers in the COMMIT trial in 1988, and completed detailed tobacco use telephone surveys in 1988, 1993, and 2001. A person was classified as a former smoker if at the time of follow-up he or she reported not smoking for at least 6 months prior to the interview. Reasons and methods for quitting also were assessed in 1993 and 2001. Among smokers in 1988, 24% had stopped smoking by 1993 and 42% were not smoking by 2001. The most frequently cited reasons for quitting were health and cost reasons, while assisted methods to quit were more common in more recent years. Measures of nicotine dependence were much more strongly associated with cessation than measures of motivation. Other predictors included male gender, older age, higher income, and less frequent alcohol consumption, although the gender effect no longer existed when cessation from cigarettes as well as other tobacco products was considered as the outcome. The present study shows that nicotine dependence is a major factor predicting long-term cessation in smokers. This finding has implications for tobacco control policy and treatment approaches.

The declines in cancer incidence and death rates, particularly for lung cancer, are encouraging. However, unless recent upward trends in smoking among adolescents can be reversed, the lung cancer rates that are currently declining in the United States may rise again.

The discrepancy between cigarette smoking status reported during an interview and measured level of serum cotinine, a nicotine biomarker, was investigated in a representative sample of the US population aged >/=17 years (N = 15,357). Data were collected from participants in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1988-1994). Among self-reported smokers, 7.5% (95% confidence interval: 6.3, 8.7) had a serum cotinine level less than or equal to 15.0 ng/ml, the selected cutoff point for identifying nonsmokers. Age (p < 0.01), race/ethnicity (p < 0.01), and average number of cigarettes smoked per day (p < 0.01) were associated with these discrepant findings. Among self-reported nonsmokers, 1.4% (95% confidence interval: 1.1, 1.7) had a serum cotinine level greater than 15.0 ng/ml, the selected cutoff point for identifying smokers. Race/ethnicity (p < 0.01), education (p < 0.01), number of household members who smoked in the home (p = 0.03), and self-reported smoking status from an earlier home interview (p < 0.01) were associated with these discrepant findings. Differences in smoking patterns, including the extent of nicotine dosing, may explain most of the discrepancy observed among self-reported smokers, whereas deception regarding smoking status may explain most of the discrepancy among self-reported nonsmokers. This study provides evidence that self-reported smoking status among adult respondents to a population-based survey conducted in a private medical setting is accurate.

An inability to maintain abstinence is a key indicator of tobacco dependence. Unfortunately, little evidence exists regarding the ability of the major tobacco dependence measures to predict smoking cessation outcome. This paper used data from four placebo-controlled smoking cessation trials and one international epidemiologic study to determine relations between the Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND; Heatherton et al., 1991), the Heaviness of Smoking Index (HSI; Kozlowski et al., 1994), the Nicotine Dependence Syndrome Scale (NDSS; Shiffman et al., 2004) and the Wisconsin Inventory of Smoking Dependence Motives (WISDM; Piper et al. 2004) with cessation success. Results showed that much of the predictive validity of the FTND could be attributed to its first item, time to first cigarette in the morning, and this item had greater validity than any other single measure. Thus, the time to first cigarette item appears to tap a pattern of heavy, uninterrupted, and automatic smoking and may be a good single-item measure of nicotine dependence.