Tobacco Smoke Exposure and Tobacco Product Use

Dear Colleagues,

Although prevalence rates of cigarette use are at an all-time low, rates of noncombustible tobacco product use (e.g., electronic cigarettes, JUUL) continue to increase. There is concern that this rapidly changing landscape of tobacco product use will negate the positive gains we have achieved with decades worth of tobacco control efforts. There is also concern that a new generation of young people will soon be addicted to nicotine and tobacco use. Along with this broad spectrum of tobacco use patterns, health concerns related to tobacco use and tobacco smoke exposure are also changing. More research is needed to investigate vaping-related harms such as E-cigarette or Vaping Product Use-Associated Lung Injury (EVALI) and concerns related to smoking/vaping and COVID-19 and other infections. Evolution is also being seen in tobacco smoke exposure research, in which studies are needed to evaluate the epidemiology, sources, and related clinical effects of exposure to secondhand smoke, secondhand aerosol, thirdhand smoke, and thirdhand aerosol. Given these issues, tobacco control and tobacco smoke exposure reduction interventions and policies are urgently needed to curb these alarming trends in tobacco product use and exposure. This Special Issue aims to provide an overview of patterns of newer tobacco product use and exposure, biomarkers of tobacco use and tobacco smoke exposure, the related spectrum of clinical or neurobehavioral effects in diverse age and racial/ethnic groups, and interventions aimed to reduce current tobacco use and exposure patterns.  

Topics of interest include, but are not limited, to:

• Epidemiology and/or biomarker patterns of tobacco use and tobacco smoke exposure;
• Clinical effects of tobacco product use, particularly electronic cigarettes;
• Clinical and neurobehavioral effects of prenatal and postnatal tobacco smoke exposure;
• Associations of tobacco product use or tobacco smoke exposure and clinical biomarkers or diagnostic tests;
• Healthcare utilization patterns associated with tobacco product use and tobacco smoke exposure;

• Interventions to promote tobacco cessation or tobacco smoke exposure.

Disclaimer: We will not accept research funded in part or full by any tobacco companies in this Special Issue. For more details, please check: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/12/2831/htm.

Prof. E. Melinda Mahabee-Gittens
Prof. Dr. Ashley L. Merianos
Guest Editors

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