Tobacco: Tobacco Diseases

Tobacco Diseases Biography

The Burden of Tobacco Use

Tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the United States. Each year, an estimated 443,000 people die prematurely from smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke, and another 8.6 million live with a serious illness caused by smoking. Despite these risks, approximately 46.6 million U.S. adults smoke cigarettes. Smokeless tobacco, cigars, and pipes also have deadly consequences, including lung, larynx, esophageal, and oral cancers.

The harmful effects of smoking do not end with the smoker. An estimated 88 million nonsmoking Americans, including 54% of children aged 3–11 years, are exposed to secondhand smoke. Even brief exposure can be dangerous because nonsmokers inhale many of the same poisons in cigarette smoke as smokers.

Secondhand smoke exposure causes serious disease and death, including heart disease and lung cancer in nonsmoking adults and sudden infant death syndrome, acute respiratory infections, ear problems, and more frequent and severe asthma attacks in children. Each year, primarily because of exposure to secondhand smoke, an estimated 3,000 nonsmoking Americans die of lung cancer, more than 46,000 die of heart disease, and about 150,000–300,000 children younger than 18 months have lower respiratory tract infections.

Coupled with this enormous health toll is the significant economic burden of tobacco use—more than $96 billion a year in medical costs and another $97 billion a year from lost productivity.

The Tobacco Use Epidemic Can Be Stopped

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, Ending the Tobacco Problem: A Blueprint for the Nation, presents a plan to "reduce smoking so substantially that it is no longer a public health problem for our nation." Foremost among the IOM recommendations is that each state should fund a comprehensive tobacco control program at the level recommended by CDC in Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs–2007. This publication is a guide to help states plan and establish effective tobacco control programs to prevent and reduce tobacco use.

Evidence-based, statewide tobacco control programs that are comprehensive, sustained, and accountable have been shown to reduce smoking rates, tobacco-related deaths, and diseases caused by smoking. A comprehensive program is a coordinated effort to establish smoke-free policies, reduce the social acceptability of tobacco use, promote cessation, help tobacco users quit, and prevent initiation of tobacco use. This approach combines educational, clinical, regulatory, economic, and social strategies.

Research has documented the effectiveness of laws and policies to protect the public from secondhand smoke exposure, promote cessation, and prevent initiation by young people. For example, states can

Increase the unit price of tobacco products.

Implement smoke-free policies, regulations, and laws.

Provide insurance coverage of tobacco-use treatment.

Limit minors' access to tobacco products.

Tobacco Diseases