Smokers With Behavioral Health Comorbidity Should Be Designated a Tobacco Use Disparity Group.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Posted by: Natalia Gromov
Williams JM, Steinberg ML, Griffiths KG, Cooperman N. American Journal of Public Health. 2013. e-View Ahead of Print, June 18, 2013.
This study documents the disparity in smoking rates among person with behavioral health issues relative to the general population, and notes that smokers with co-occurring mental illness or substance use disorders are not designated a disparity group or priority population by most national public health and tobacco control groups. This is despite the fact that these smokers fulfill the criteria commonly used to identify groups that merit special attention: targeted marketing by the tobacco industry, high smoking prevalence rates, heavy economic and health burdens from tobacco, limited access to treatment, and longer durations of smoking with less cessation. The authors make the case for designating smokers with behavioral health comorbidity a priority group.
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