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Tobacco Use
Scientists have conducted thousands of studies on tobacco's role in causing cancer and the evidence is incontrovertible.
Cigarette smoking is linked to at least 30 percent of all US deaths from cancer. Avoiding tobacco use is the single
most important step that Americans can take to prevent cancer.
The Risk Factor Monitoring and Methods Branch (RFMMB) monitors tobacco use through the use of surveys of the US household
population. For example, our staff is primarily responsible for designing and administering the NCI- and CDC-sponsored
Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey (TUS-CPS). As part of this
effort, we gather suggestions from a broad range of experts to develop the questions for the survey. We are also involved
in developing the tobacco-related questions that are periodically added to the National
Health Interview Survey (NHIS) Cancer Control Supplement, conducted by the CDC
National Center for Health Statistics. We also use the tobacco use information contained in the Health
Information National Trends Survey (HINTS), developed by the National Cancer Institute.
Information from these surveys allow us to monitor Americans' progress in reducing tobacco use, evaluate tobacco control
programs, and conduct other tobacco-related research. We examine the data in terms of trends over time and patterns across
various groups, and we look at the issues from several perspectives:
- We analyze individuals' smoking status (every day, some day, former, or never-smoker); current
level of cigarette consumption; smoking history; age of initiation; attempts to quit; methods used to quit; and
use of cigars, pipes, chewing tobacco, snuff, and other non-cigarette tobacco products.
- We also examine national, state, and local laws and policies on questions such as whether smoking
is allowed in indoor workplaces or in the home; advice given by doctors and dentists about quitting smoking; and
opinions of the US populace about restrictions on smoking in public places and tobacco advertisement and promotion.
- We explore and assess health disparities issues related to tobacco use. For
example, we provided a presentation and report from the May 2010 TUS-CPS on
"What menthol smokers report they would do if menthol cigarettes were no longer
available" to the FDA Center for Tobacco Products - Tobacco Products Scientific
Advisory Committee (TPSAC) as they were deliberating over whether or not menthol
in cigarettes was harmful to the public health of the US. For more information,
see this presentation
(PDF) and this report (PDF).
In addition, a special supplement of Addiction in November 2010 on the impact of
menthol cigarettes featured data from the TUS-CPS and the Cancer Control
Supplement (CCS) to the NHIS. See our publications database for additional reports
and publications on health disparities using TUS-CPS data.
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