Le Thuy Tt, Mendez David
Department of Health Management and Policy, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Department of Health Management and Policy, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
Tob Control. 2021 Feb 25. doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2020-056256.
Menthol cigarettes are thought to encourage smoking initiation among youths and young adults and make it more difficult for smokers to quit, thus increasing cigarette harm. However, no study to date has quantified the damage that menthol cigarettes have caused the US population.
To estimate the excess smoking prevalence, smoking initiation, and mortality in the US from 1980 through 2018 that can be attributed to menthol cigarettes.
Using a well-established simulation model of smoking prevalence and health effects and data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), we first reproduced the overall US adult smoking prevalence between 1980 and 2018 (pseudo-R=0.98) and associated mortality. Then we re-ran the model, assuming that menthol cigarettes were not present in the market over the same period. Finally, we compared both scenarios to quantify the public health harm attributable to menthol over the 1980-2018 period.
From 1980 to 2018, we found that menthol cigarettes were responsible for slowing down the decline in smoking prevalence by 2.6 percentage points (13.7% vs 11.1% in 2018). Our results also show that menthol cigarettes were responsible for 10.1 million extra smokers, 3 million life years lost and 378 000 premature deaths during that period.
With millions of excess smoking initiators and thousands of smoking-related deaths due to mentholated cigarettes from 1980 through 2018, our results indicate that these products have had a significant detrimental impact on the public's health and could continue to pose a substantial health risk. Our findings can assist the Food and Drug Administration in evaluating potential regulatory actions for mentholated tobacco products.
薄荷醇香烟被认为会促使青少年和年轻人开始吸烟，并使吸烟者更难戒烟，从而增加了香烟的危害。然而，迄今为止，尚无研究对薄荷醇香烟给美国人口造成的损害进行量化。
估计1980年至2018年期间美国因薄荷醇香烟导致的额外吸烟流行率、吸烟起始率和死亡率。
利用一个成熟的吸烟流行率和健康影响模拟模型以及来自美国国家健康访谈调查（NHIS）的数据，我们首先再现了1980年至2018年期间美国成年人的总体吸烟流行率（伪R=0.98）及相关死亡率。然后，我们重新运行该模型，假设同期市场上不存在薄荷醇香烟。最后，我们比较这两种情况，以量化1980 - 2018年期间薄荷醇造成的公共卫生危害。
1980年至2018年，我们发现薄荷醇香烟使吸烟流行率的下降速度减缓了2.6个百分点（2018年为13.7%对11.1%）。我们的结果还表明，在此期间，薄荷醇香烟导致了额外1010万吸烟者、300万生命年损失和37.8万例过早死亡。
1980年至2018年期间，薄荷醇香烟导致了数百万额外的吸烟起始者以及数千例与吸烟相关的死亡，我们的结果表明，这些产品对公众健康产生了重大不利影响，并可能继续构成重大健康风险。我们的研究结果可协助美国食品药品监督管理局评估针对薄荷醇烟草产品的潜在监管行动。
