Past Decade's Poor Economy Drove Health Declines
More than a decade of research points to the negative impact of the austerity that accompanies a flagging economy on the population's health, according to Reuters. The studies will be detailed in a new book to be released by an interesting research pairing including a political economist from Oxford University and a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Standford University. the researchers say more than 10,000 suicides and up to a million cases of depression have been diagnosed during what they call the "Great Recession" and its accompanying austerity across Europe and North America. For example, more than five million Americans have lost access to health care during the latest recession. Researchers also tie cuts in governmental public health programs to excess disease rates. "In Greece, moves like cutting HIV prevention budgets have coincided with rates of the AIDS-causing virus rising by more than 200 percent since 2011—driven in part by increasing drug abuse in the context of a 50 percent youth unemployment rate," according to the Reuters article. Read more on poverty and health.

What Influences Kids to Smoke (or Not to) Changes Over Time
Peer pressure may have a bigger influence on middle school-aged kids in starting to smoke, but that influence may wane as they get older. On the other hand, researchers said parents seem to remain influential over their children's smoking behavior throughout high school, as reported by HealthDay. Researchers looked at data from  the Midwestern Prevention Project, the longest-running substance abuse prevention, randomized controlled trial in the United States, which includes 1,000 teens. Read more on tobacco use. 

Facebook Could Help Predict, Track and Map Obesity
The higher the percentage of people in a city, town or neighborhood with Facebook interests suggesting a healthy, active lifestyle, the lower that area's obesity rate, according to a new study. At the same time, areas with a large percentage of Facebook users with television-related interests tend to have higher rates of obesity. The study was conducted by Boston Children's Hospital researchers comparing geotagged Facebook user data with data from national and New York City-focused health surveys. 

"Online social networks like Facebook represent a new high-value, low-cost data stream for looking at health at a population level," said study author John Brownstein, PhD, from the Boston Children's Hospital Informatics Program. "The tight correlation between Facebook users' interests and obesity data suggest that this kind of social network analysis could help generate real-time estimates of obesity levels in an area, help target public health campaigns that would promote healthy behavior change, and assess the success of those campaigns." The study was published in PLOS ONE. Read more on obesity.

Do we need an endgame strategy to finally end the devastating hold tobacco has on its users? Scholars, scientists and policy experts grapple with endgame proposals in a special supplement to the journal Tobacco Control. Some of the articles are based on a workshop held last year at the University of Michigan, with financial support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the American Legacy Foundation. The workshop was hosted by Kenneth Warner, PhD, a former dean at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and now a professor at the School.

Although smoking has declined significantly in most developed nations in the last half-century, due to policy changes and increased education about the health hazards, says Warner, too many people continue to die from the most preventable cause of premature death and illness. It's estimated that worldwide six million people a year die from illnesses caused by cigarettes, including more than 400,000 in the U.S. alone."There is a newfound interest in discussing the idea of an endgame strategy. The fact that we can talk about it openly reflects a sea change,” says Warner.

>>Read the articles in the tobacco endgame supplement.

Some of the strategies in the supplement include:

• Requiring manufacturers to reduce nicotine content sufficiently to make cigarettes nonaddictive.
• A "sinking lid" strategy that would call for quotas on sales and imports of tobacco, which would reduce supply and drive up price to deter tobacco purchases.
• A "tobacco-free generation" proposal calling for laws that would prevent the sale of tobacco to those born after a given year, usually cited as 2000, to keep young people from starting to smoke; or ban the sale of cigarettes altogether.

"What we are doing today is not enough," says Warner.  "Even if we do very well with tobacco control, as we have for several decades now, we'll have a huge number of smokers for years to come, and smoking will continue to cause millions of deaths.”

NewPublicHealth recently spoke with Dr. Warner about some of the strategies proposed for ending tobacco use.

NewPublicHealth: Why is there a need for novel, even radical, endgame strategy?

Ken Warner: While a lot of people have quit smoking, if you look at the rate at which people are quitting in the United States, in the last few years it may actually have declined. In Canada, there is some concern that their very low rates of smoking may actually have gone up. In Singapore, which had the lowest smoking prevalence among developed nations, the smoking rate went up from 12.6 percent to 14.3 percent between 2004 and 2010. So what we're observing is that in some of the countries that have had pretty good success with tobacco control, smoking is now being reduced somewhat more slowly, or possibly even increasing. And if we stay at the current rate of smoking, or even if the smoking rate continues to decline slowly, smoking will remain the leading cause of preventable premature death for many years to come.

NPH: What are some of the reasons that we’re seeing a plateau in the reduction of tobacco use?

What’s the number one littered item on U.S. roadways? Cigarette butts.

And that’s not much of a surprise given a new survey from Legacy, an advocacy group focused on ending youth smoking, and Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics, which found that more than 44 percent of those polled who’ve smoked admit to having dropped a cigarette on the ground. And nearly 32 percent of responders who’ve smoked have dropped a cigarette out of a car window.

Cigarette butts do way more harm than simply adding to unsightly litter. The butts include the cigarette’s plastic filter, which pose risks to animals and biodegrade only under extreme conditions. And cigarette butts contain carcinogens that can leach into soil, as well as chemicals that are poisonous to wildlife and can contaminate water sources.

Legacy and Leave No Trace have developed a suite of materials to help push people to action and reduce the butt litter.

• An infographic on the dangerous materials in cigarette butts
• A toolkit to help spread the word about what people can do to rid the earth of cigarette butts
• Television and radio Public Service Announcement

Watch the PSA "Toxic Litter Everywhere" below.

While twelve states currently have laws regulating sales of electronic cigarettes (known as e-cigarettes) to minors, a new post on the Network for Public Health Law blog calls on more states to restrict sales to minors while the Food and Drug Administration continues their review of the device.

E-cigarettes contain nicotine, but no tobacco and often come in kid-alluring flavors such as chocolate and vanilla. According to the Network post, one small FDA study found carcinogens and toxins in e-cigarettes. Health experts are concerned that the electronic devices may also be a gateway tool for young adults to actual, cancer-causing, tobacco-filled cigarettes.

E-cigarette use has skyrocketed among adults, according to a recent study by researchers funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2011, about 21 percent of adults who smoke traditional cigarettes had used electronic cigarettes, up from about 10 percent in 2010. Awareness of e-cigarettes rose from about four in 10 adults in 2010 to six in 10 adults in 2011. 

>>Read the post.

Today is “Kick Butts Day!”—an annual Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) effort to emphasize the dangers of tobacco while empowering kids to lead the fight against its use by encouraging their peers, family and community members to stay tobacco-free.

The United States continues to make great strides when it comes to combating youth smoking. According to the CTFK report “America’s Most Wanted Tobacco Villains: The Usual Suspects, New Villains and Emerging Threats,” about 18.1 percent of high school students smoked in 2011, down from a high of 36.4 percent in 1997. Even still, about 1,000 kids become regular smokers each day. The report highlights the biggest tobacco threats and how they’re working to get kids addicted to the deadly substance.

As part of Kick Butts Day 2013, CTFK created two infographics.

Last month at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials Annual Meeting (ASTHO), attendees focused during one session on the progress made in reducing tobacco death and disease—and the significant room for improvement, as tobacco remains the leading cause of preventable death in the United States.

We caught up with Lawrence Deyton, MSPH, MD, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products at the ASTHO meeting to get his take on the value of tobacco control as a prevention strategy, as well as the role of state and local public health officials.

NewPublicHealth: What did you go to ASTHO to learn, and what did you share? 

Dr. Deyton: State health officers are on the front lines of tobacco control. They see the impact in their communities. I went to the ASTHO meeting to both hear from them, and to explain where we are in tobacco regulation at the FDA and to invite the public health community to get more involved in the regulatory process by commenting.

The depth and breadth of my respect for the work state health officers do—and the budgets they have to do it with—is great. We’ll want to see comments from all stakeholders, including folks from ASTHO, on our proposed regulations, because public health officials all have a very important view we’ll want to hear about. They may have the data that could be important to support their recommendations.

NPH: What is the FDA Center for Tobacco Products doing to help prevent tobacco-related death in the U.S., and what do you want public health leaders to know about this work? 

Investing in Tobacco Cessation Programs Can Cut Costs, Save Lives
Preventable health problems from tobacco account for $200 billion each year in health care costs and lost productivity. Investing properly in often-underfunded tobacco cessation programs — such as smoke-free workplace rules and taxes — can cut these costs dramatically, according to a new brief from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The return on investment in cessation programs has been shown to be as high as $50 for every $1 spent. The brief is part of RWJF’s Health Policy Connection series. Read more on tobacco.

“Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” Nationwide Campaign Set to Start
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s annual “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” campaign starts August 17. More than 10,000 police departments and law enforcement agencies are participating in the annual crackdown on drunk driving. It runs through the Labor Day weekend. In 2010, more than two-thirds of the deaths in drunk driving collisions involved drivers whose blood alcohol levels that were nearly twice the legal limit of 0.08, according to NHTSA. Read more on alcohol.

$3M Study to Reduce Errors During Patient ‘Hand Offs’
As many as 70 percent of the most serious hospital errors can be linked to poor communication. This is especially the case during patient transfers — or “hand offs” — such as admission, shift changes and after procedures. In an effort to curb this statistic and stop errors before they can occur, nine hospitals around the country are participating in the I-PASS study to figure out the best way to train residents in “handing off” pediatric patients. The study is funded by a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Read more on health care.

Health Hazard Warning Labels Help Keep Ex-Smokers Away From Cigarettes

Warnings on cigarette packages about the health hazards of smoking may keep ex-smokers from starting to smoke again, according to a study in the journal Tobacco Control. The findings are based on results of a survey taken among 2,000 former smokers in Canada, Australia, Britain and the US.

Read more on tobacco.

New, Occasional Prescription Drug Abusers Often Get Their Drugs from Friends, Family

The Office of National Drug Control Policy has released an analysis of data from the 2009 and 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health that finds that the majority of new or occasional nonmedical users of pain relievers got the drug from family or friends for free or took them without asking. In contrast, frequent or chronic users (those who used pain relievers non-medically once a week or more on average in the past year) were more likely to obtain the drug from doctors or by buying them themselves.

Read a recent NewPublicHealth interview with the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy R. Gil Kerlikowske about the National Prevention Strategy.

To help Americans dispose of any unneeded medications in their homes, the Drug Enforcement Administration will host its fourth National Take Back Day on Saturday, April 28^th, at over 5,000 collection sites across the United States.

Read more on prescription drug abuse.

In Recent Years Poverty Rates Have Increased Among Oldest Americans

A new report from the Employment Benefit Research Institute finds that between 2005–2009, the rate of poverty among American seniors rose as they aged. Almost 15 percent of those older than age 85 were in poverty in 2009, compared with approximately 10.5 percent of those older than 65, Additionally, in 2009, 6 percent of those age 85 older were new entrants in poverty.

Read more on poverty.

See more public health news roundups.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced that it will require tobacco companies to report on a range of toxic chemical ingredients, as well as back up any claims for "safer" tobacco products.

Both actions will have a public comment period, ending June 4, 2012, before the rules become final.

Under the proposed regulations, tobacco companies will be required to report quantities of 20 different ingredients associated with cancer, lung disease and other health problems on consumer-friendly packaging by the end of the year, and the agency plans to make the information available to the public in a consumer-friendly format by April 2013.

Tobacco manufacturers will also have to substantiate claims if they want to market a tobacco product as "less risky" to health.

>>Read a statement from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids on the new rules.

>>Read more about modified risk tobacco products.

>>Read more about potentially harmful chemicals in tobacco products.

It’s Kick Butts Day! Organized by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK), the goal of the day is to empower kids to lead the fight against tobacco use by encouraging their peers, family and community members to stay tobacco-free.

This year, Kick Butts Day comes two weeks after a new report by the U.S. Surgeon General found that, while the nation has made great progress in reducing youth smoking, youth tobacco use remains a “pediatric epidemic” that requires urgent action.

Over 1,000 Kick Butts Day activities will take place today throughout the country including concerts, rallies, health fairs and “They put WHAT in a cigarette?” presentations. The site also offers an extraordinary list of resources that schools, health care professionals and community programs can use to help prevent kids from starting to smoke and to help them quit if they’ve started. Today, CTFK also released a new video aimed at educating and empowering kids, particularly around the issue of tobacco company marketing targeted to youth. Watch the video here: