Smoking remains a major public health challenge in Rhode Island. While Rhode Island has one of the lowest reported youth smoking rates in the US at 4.2%, and smoking rates have declined from 17.4% to 14.4% from 2011-2016 for adults and 13% to 4.2% from 2009-2019 for high school students, roughly a quarter of RI’s […]

There have been many studies examining the effects of lives saved since the adoption of the WHO FCTC and its MPOWER measures.  The recent one, published in Tobacco Control by Husain et al, explored two issues: First, how effective are interventions such as MPOWER in achieving our shared goal of a smoke-free world? Second, can […]

A quote from Plato’s work Phaedrus says, “Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden.” This proverb is an apt description of some recent research on e-cigarettes and tobacco harm reduction, where first assumptions appear to be inaccurate based on […]

An increasing number of economic studies show that how smokers perceive e-cigarette harm can influence their behavior when they consider quitting or switching from combustible cigarettes to e-cigarettes. Risk perception can also foreshadow young smokers’ behavior when choosing between combustible cigarettes or e-cigarettes, neither, or both. The link between risk perception and smoking behavior is […]