Ali Mohammed, Jawad Mohammed
Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow, UK.
Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK.
Tob Use Insights. 2017 Apr 11;10:1179173X17696055. doi: 10.1177/1179173X17696055. eCollection 2017.
Many public health messages benchmark the harms of waterpipe tobacco against those of cigarettes, usually using numerical magnitudes of risk. This approach, although well intentioned, could be perceived as alarmist, damaging scientific credibility, and giving an unintended impression that one tobacco product is less harmful than the other. This commentary makes clear the harm waterpipe tobacco smoking poses to public health by describing its mechanism of use, consumption uptake, toxicologic profile, and documented health outcomes, as well as challenge existing thinking that toxicologic assessments are the most appropriate way to frame waterpipe tobacco health promotion messages. How can we describe the health effects of waterpipe tobacco without undermining its toxicity nor falling into the temptation of alarmist messaging? Several recommendations are provided.
许多公共卫生信息将水烟烟草的危害与香烟的危害进行对比，通常采用风险数值量级。这种做法尽管初衷良好，但可能被视为危言耸听，损害科学可信度，并无意间给人一种一种烟草产品比另一种危害小的印象。本评论通过描述水烟烟草的使用机制、消费情况、毒理学特征和已记录的健康结果，明确了吸食水烟烟草对公众健康造成的危害，同时也质疑了现有观点，即毒理学评估是制定水烟烟草健康促进信息的最合适方式。我们如何在不削弱水烟烟草毒性，又不陷入危言耸听式信息传递的诱惑的情况下，描述水烟烟草对健康的影响？本文提供了一些建议。
