Vermont Center on Behavior and Health

The November 2019 Special Issue of Preventive Medicine is the sixth in a series that focuses on behavior change, health, and health disparities. 

Select researchers that participated in the 2018 Vermont Center on Behavior and Health 6th Annual Conference were invited to contribute to the Special Issue based on their exemplary scholarship and research on opioids, tobacco, and treatment adherence. VCBH Director, Dr. Stephen Higgins, once again acted as guest editor for the special issue and organized the selection of papers.

Considerable attention is given to the ongoing U.S. opioid epidemic and the critical need to develop clinical infrastructure to meet the growing demand for opioid-related clinical services. Selected papers also address tobacco use and adherence to medical regimens.

           To share the latest research in effectively addressing and managing these problems, Stephen T. Higgins, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Vermont Center on Behavior and Health (VCBH) at The Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine at The University of Vermont, collaborated with experts on a fifth annual Special Issue of the journal Preventive Medicine, titled “Behavior change, health, and health disparities 2018: Tobacco Regulatory Science.” 

            “While tremendous progress has been made in reducing overall U.S. smoking prevalence and its adverse health impacts, more needs to be done.” Higgins writes in his introduction. “This Special Issue offers some ideas that have the potential to make a substantive contribution towards that goal."

            The Special Issue features 15 scientific papers on tobacco regulatory science.

Articles on the topic of reducing nicotine content cigarettes include but not limited to:

• "Nicotine reduction strategy: State of science and challenges to tobacco control policy and FDA tobacco product regulation", by Neal Benowitz and Jack Henningield.

• "Response to reduced nicotine content cigarettes among smokers differing in tobacco dependence severity", by Stephen Higgins, Cecilia Bergeria, Danielle Davis, Joanna Streck, Andrea Villanti, John Hughes, Stacey Sigmon, Jennifer Tidey, Sarah Heil, Diann Gaalema, Maxine Stitzer, Jeffrey Priest, Joan Skelly, Derek Reed, Janice Bunn, Morgan Tromblee, Christopher Arger, & Mollie Miller.
  

 Articles on the topic of tobacco regulatory science and vulnerable populations include but are not limited to:

• "Understanding individual differences in vulnerability to cigarette smoking is enhanced by attention to the intersection of common risk factors", by Diann Gaalema, Adam Leventhal, Jeffrey Priest, & Stephen Higgins.
  
  
• "Tobacco and nicotine delivery product use in a U.S. national sample of women of reproductive age", by Alexa Lopez, Ryan Reder, Allison Kurti, Diana Keith, Andrea Villanti, Cassandra Stanton, Diann Gaalema, Janice Bunn, Nathan Doogan, Antonio Cepeda-Benito, Megan Roberts, & Stephen Higgins.
  

 Articles on the challenges/potential benefits of facilitating substitution of non-combustible products for conventional cigarettes among persistent cigarette smokers include but are not limited to:

• "Managing nicotine without smoke to save lives know: Evidence for harm minimization", by David Abrams, Allison Glasser,, Andrea Villanti, Jennifer Pearson, Shyanika Rose, & Raymond Niaura.
  
  
• "Electronic cigarette subsitution in the experimental tobacco marketplace: A review", by Warren Bickel, Derek Pope, Brent Kaplan, Willam DeHart, Mikhail Koffarnus, & Jeffrey Stein.
  

Contributors to the Special Issue are selected from participants in the 2017 Annual Conference on Behavior Change, Health, and Health Disparities organized by the VCBH.