The report estimates over 490,000 annual US deaths are linked to tobacco use and secondhand smoke and emphasizes the need to address persistent disparities in tobacco-related health outcomes.
RT’s Three Key Takeaways:
- Tobacco-Related Deaths: The 2024 Surgeon General’s Report attributes over 490,000 annual deaths in the United States to cigarette smoking and secondhand tobacco smoke.
- Persistent Disparities Identified: The report highlights significant disparities in tobacco use and health outcomes by race, ethnicity, income, education, gender identity, occupation, geography, and behavioral health status.
- Call for Equity-Driven Interventions: The report emphasizes the need for social and structural changes, including prevention campaigns, cessation support, and policies to reduce tobacco product appeal, accessibility, and addictiveness, with a focus on reducing health inequities.
The recently released 35th tobacco-related 2024 Surgeon General’s Report estimates that each year more than 490,000 deaths are attributable to cigarette smoking and exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke in the United States.
Key findings in the report, “Eliminating Tobacco-Related Disease and Death: Addressing Disparities—A Report of the Surgeon General,” highlight the persistence of disparities in tobacco use by race and ethnicity, level of income, level of education, gender identity, type of occupation, geography, and behavioral health status.
The report notes that addressing disparities requires reflection on the complex history of the commercialization of tobacco and both past and present-day experiences of racism, discrimination, and targeted marketing by the tobacco industry.
“With one in five US deaths attributable to tobacco and persistent disparities in tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke, this report underscores the tremendous impact of commercial tobacco in the US and the disproportionate burden placed on some people and communities,” says Andrea Villanti, PhD, MPH, the deputy director of the Rutgers Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies, professor in the Rutgers School of Public Health, and a senior scientific editor on the report, in a release. “Our findings elevate tobacco-related health disparities as social justice issue—not just a health or economic issue.”
A Call for Interventions to Reduce Tobacco-Related Inequities
The report calls for social and structural interventions to reduce inequities in the use of tobacco products and the influence of commercial tobacco companies, as well as complementary approaches to reduce the appeal, affordability, accessibility, and addictiveness of tobacco products; eliminate exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke; conduct high-impact prevention and cessation media campaigns; and promote barrier-free access to cessation support—all with broad reach to disparate populations.
The authors state the equitable implementation of programs and policies will be needed to decrease disparities in tobacco use and tobacco-related disease and death.
Further Efforts Needed
The report recommends further efforts to assess structural and social determinants of health, increase the representation of disparate populations in research, and improve understanding of intervention impacts—including programs and policies—on tobacco-related health inequities.
“Our work on this report spanned the COVID-19 pandemic and social movements that have brought the importance of health equity to the fore in our public health research and practice,” Villanti says in a release. “This report is a clarion call for greater research and action to improve tobacco-related health equity.”
Faculty in the Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies are engaged in tobacco-related health equity research across a number of projects, including studies on disinformation and potential reactions to the US Food and Drug Administration’s proposed menthol cigarette and flavored cigar bans in Black/African American young adults and adults and Hispanic young adults.
