818: Tobacco-Related Disparities, Illegally Manufactured Fentanyl Report

SUMMER JOHNSON: 

This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Wednesday, January 8, 2025. I'm Summer Johnson. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

KRISTY MARYNAK: 

What the report found is that although tobacco use has declined substantially in our country, disparities in who uses tobacco have really not changed, and in some cases, have even worsened.

JOHNSON: 

The U.S. Surgeon General recently released a report on tobacco-related disease and death, according to the CDC's Dr. Kristy Marynak, this is the first report in decades to specifically focus on disparities.

MARYNAK: 

So, the report back in 1998 looked at use of tobacco products by race and ethnicity, and this report really expands the focus to look at race and ethnicity as well as sexual orientation and gender identity, income, education, mental health, and substance use, and geography, and their intersections with tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure.

JOHNSON: 

Marynak says this data is especially important for states.

MARYNAK: 

So, at the state level, it's also critical to measure tobacco use and disparities and measure constructs like sexual orientation and gender identity and race and ethnicity and other factors so that we can understand disparities by those factors.

JOHNSON: 

Marynak hopes the data will be used to move the right people.

MARYNAK: 

For example, a Michigan lawmaker actually read findings from the Surgeon General's report about the evidence regarding the harm of flavored tobacco products and the effectiveness of banning the sale of flavored tobacco products in a hearing. So, connecting the scientific evidence with the people who can actually act on it is so important.

JOHNSON: 

You can read the full report by clicking the link in the show notes.

A CDC report details overdose rates, specifically overdose deaths, from illicitly manufactured fentanyls, or IMFs. Here is the CDC, Dr. Jean Koh.

JEAN KO: 

We found that the number of drug overdose deaths overall and with illicitly manufactured fentanyls, or IMFs, detected started to decline across the United States in late 2023.

JOHNSON: 

The report also describes what happened in various geographic areas.

KO: 

Declines started earlier in the northeast, midwest, and south where the percentage of overdose deaths with IMFs detected was stable, around 70 to 80% from 2021 to 2024, and the west overdose deaths with IMFs detected increased into late 2023 and just started to decline in the last quarter of 2023.

JOHNSON: 

Koh says public health can use the data to respond quickly with strategic and focused initiatives.

KO: 

CDC supports our state partners and the District of Columbia to promote evidence-based strategies aligned with the rapid shifts and overdose trends, clinician or health system engagement, public safety partnerships and community-based linkages to care are a few of our required prevention strategies as part of the Overdose Data to Action cooperative agreement.

JOHNSON: 

The full CDC report is online now. We have a link in the show notes.

Also, an ASTHO blog article discusses the integration of race and ethnicity data into public health. Several perspectives from across the nation are included. You can read this helpful resource today by clicking the link in the show notes.

Finally, if you want to stay on top of public health news in the new year, sign up for ASTHO's Public Health Weekly newsletter. That way you'll have ASTHO news in your inbox each week. It's the perfect compliment to this newscast. A link to sign up is in the show notes.

That'll do it for today. We're back tomorrow morning with more ASTHO news and information. I'm Summer Johnson, you're listening to the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great day.