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Disparities in Tobacco Use and Lung Cancer

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Toward the Elimination of Cancer Disparities

The burden of tobacco use is not distributed equally throughout the population. Striking disparities exist in tobacco use around the world and in the US, not only across dimensions such as race/ethnicity and socioeconomic position but also across the continuum of tobacco use from initiation to cessation (See Fig. 5.1). Diseases caused by tobacco use, especially lung cancer, reflect and perpetuate these disparities and contribute to economic costs of smoking in the US estimated to be $167B/year (CDC 2007a). This chapter reviews these disparities, focusing particularly on the US, and offers some strategies to reduce them.

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Acknowledgments

This publication was supported in part by MassCONECT funded under Grant Number 5 U01 CA114644 from the National Cancer Institute. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the National Cancer Institute’s Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Public Health Practice, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Howard K. Koh (Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health, Associate Dean for Public Health Practice, Director)

  2. Division of Public Health Practice, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA

    Loris Elqura & Sarah Massin Short

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  1. Howard K. Koh
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Correspondence to Howard K. Koh .

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    Koh, H.K., Elqura, L., Massin Short, S. (2009). Disparities in Tobacco Use and Lung Cancer. In: Koh, H. (eds) Toward the Elimination of Cancer Disparities. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-89443-0_5

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