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Tobacco control news, resources and funding for global health researchers

Global efforts to curb tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure have increased sharply in the past decade, but so has the problem - now one person dies every six seconds because of tobacco, according to WHO data. Alarmingly, new usage patterns are emerging, with women, young people and developing country populations taking up tobacco at increasing rates, not only for cigarettes, but also for e-cigarettes and hookahs, or waterpipes.

Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where tobacco use is rising fastest, include those least equipped to tackle the associated health burdens from cancer, cardiovascular conditions, and other disease and disability. Many LMICs lack epidemiological data on their population's tobacco use and resulting costs in terms of health care and lost productivity. Consequently, they are not planning preventive action.

Fogarty's International Tobacco and Health Research and Capacity Building Program supports collaborative research and capacity building projects that address the burden of tobacco use in LMICs.

At NIH the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and National Cancer Institute (NCI) lead efforts to support research on tobacco use, addiction and associated health risks.

Related News and Information

• Variability in addictive and carcinogenic potential of smokeless tobacco products marketed in Mumbai, India: a surveillance study, co-authored by Fogarty grant recipients Pankaj Chaturvedi, Samir S. Khariwala, and Irina Stepanov
  The Lancet Regional Health - Southeast Asia, August 23, 2024
• Changing the Trajectory of the Global Tobacco Epidemic
  NCI Center for Global Health Spotlight Blog, May 24, 2024
• Examining local smoke-free coalitions in Armenia and Georgia: context and outcomes of a matched-pairs community-randomised controlled trial, co-authored by Fogarty grant recipients Carla J. Berg and Varduhi Petrosyan
  BMJ Global Health, January 2024
• Impact of regulatory tightening of the Hungarian tobacco retail market on availability, access and cigarette smoking prevalence of adolescents, co-authored by Fogarty grant recipient Kristie Foley
  Tobacco Control, January 19, 2024

NIH News and Resources

• National Cancer Institute (NCI)
• NCI Center for Global Health
• NCI tobacco research information
  

• National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
• NIDA International Program
• NIDA tobacco and nicotine research information
• NIDA tobacco addiction research report 2022
  

• MedlinePlus information on risks of tobacco

Other US Government Resources

• U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Global Tobacco Control
• Office of the U.S. Surgeon General Tobacco Reports and Publications
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products

Other Online Resources

• African Science Academy Development Initiative (ASADI) at the U.S. National Academies:
• Preventing a Tobacco Epidemic in Africa [English] [PDF], via the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
  Prévention d'une épidémie de tabagisme en Afrique [French] [PDF] via the African Science Academy Development Initiative (ASADI) at the U.S. National Academies
  A report from a committee convened by the Network of African Science Academies to outline strategies to combat increasing tobacco use in Africa.
• Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME): Tobacco Viz visualization tool shows tobacco data by country
  

Updated August 15, 2025