CORRESPONDENCE - #27 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

0 Brief report 0 Consequences of a match made in hell: the harm caused by menthol smoking to the African American population over 1980-2018 CID David Mendez,Thuy T T Le 0 ► Additional supplemental ABSTRACT avoided if menthol cigarettes were banned from the material is published online 3 5-9 W Background For many years,national surveys have market; and while other studies have addressed OW)only.To view,please visit the if journal online(http://dx.doi. shown a consistently disproportionately high prevalence the historical causes that have made menthol the 6 org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol- of menthol smokers among African Americans compared preferred choice of cigarette products among 2021-056748). with the general population.However,to our knowledge, African Americans, to our knowledge, no prior o no prior study has quantified the harm that menthol study has quantified the health harm that menthol 0 Health Management and Policy, smoking has caused on that population. In this work,we smoking has already inflicted on that population. o University of Michigan,Ann estimate the public health harm that menthol cigarettes Following a recent stud 10 that calculated the Arbor,Michigan,USA P 9 g Y N have caused to the African American community over the health damage caused by menthol smoking on the N Correspondence to last four decades. entire US population over 1980-2018, the current o DrThuyTT Le,Department of Methods Using National Health Interview Survey work estimates the share of such harm borne by the Health Management and Policy, data,we employed a well-established simulation model African American community,and its disproportion 41 University of Michigan School of o0 Public Health,Ann Arbor 48109, to reproduce the observed smoking trajectory over compared with the total menthol toll in the USA. o MI,USA;thuyttle@umich.edu 1980-2018 in the African American population.Then,we Our results may be helpful to the Food and Drug repeat the experiment,removing the effects of menthol Administration as they continue evaluating the Received 28April 2021 on the smoking initiation and cessation rates over that benefit of a menthol ban. m Accepted 16August 2021 period,obtaining a new hypothetical smoking trajectory. m Finally,we compared both scenarios to calculate the 3 public health harm attributable to menthol cigarettes METHODS over 1980-2018. We used the same simulation model and calibration o Results Our results show that menthol cigarettes process as in the Le-Mendez article10 with param- o were responsible for 1.5 million new smokers, 157000 eters specific to the African American population. smoking-related premature deaths and 1.5 million life- The model formulation,definition of model param- 0 years lost among African Americans over 1980-2018. eters and how some parameters were calculated 0 While African Americans constitute 12%of the total were thoroughly described in Le-Mendez's work.1' a US population,these figures represent, respectively,a The African American-specific parameters were a staggering 15%,41%and 50%of the total menthol- taken from several data sources described below related harm. and summarised in online supplemental table Al. B Discussion Our results show that menthol cigarettes For our initial year(1980),we obtained the African disproportionally harmed African Americans significantly American population by single year of age from the 7 over the last 38 years and are responsible for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." For o exacerbating health disparities among that population. subsequent years, we got the African American birth v Removing menthol cigarettes from the market would cohorts from 1981 through 2018 from the National o benefit the overall US population but, particularly,the Vital Statistics Reports.lz 13 The overall age-specific o African American community. death rates for the African American population, o updated every 5years, were extracted from the s 1980-2018 US Life Tables.14 We used relative risks of 3 mortality specific to the African American population, o BACKGROUND derived from Cancer Prevention Study 11(CPS-II data; 3 For over 60 years,tobacco companies have targeted Relative risks for African American current and former o ► http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/ menthol cigarettes to the African American commu- smokers were derived from CPS-II data and provided m tobaccocontrol-2021-056988 nity through aggressive marketing and promo- by Dr Michael Thun from the American Cancer -a tion.1-3 It is well known that a disproportionately Society for the 2011 Tobacco Products Scientific Advi- m Check for updates high number of African Americans smoke menthol sory Committee (TPSAC) Menthol Report.Available cigarettes. According to the 2018 National Survey in online supplemental table A5)to calculate the death N ©Author(s)(or their on Drug Use and Health,85%of African American rates by age for never, current and former smokers employer(s))2021.No N commercial re-use.See rights smokers used menthol versus 39% of those in the following thesame procedure described in Le-Men- 0 and permissions.Published general population. This is not a recent phenom- dez's article. ° Smoking prevalence for current and by BMJ. enon. In 1980, for example, menthol prevalence former smokers and the proportion of menthol use To cite:Mendez D,Le TTT. among African American smokers was 66%vs 33% among smokers in 1980 were estimated using NHIS n Tob Control Epub ahead of among the general population, according to the data. We calculated the overall smoking cessation � print:[please include Day National Health Interview Survey(NHIS). rates for African Americans by adjusting the general Month Year].doi:10.1136/ Several articles have addressed the prospec- population's overall smoking cessation rates presented o tobaccocontrol-2021-056748 tive harm to the black community that could be in Le-Mendez's work10 with the ratio of cessation m BMJ Mendez D,Le TTT Tob Control 2021;0:1-3.doi:10.1 136/tobaccocontrol-2021-056748 1 1