ArticleTobacco control2021
Consequences of a match made in hell: the harm caused by menthol smoking to the African American population over 1980-2018.
Article in Tobacco control, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers.
What it found
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed.
- Switching from menthol to non-menthol cigarettes does not impact acute responses to intravenous nicotine.Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior · 2025Trial
- Public Comments and Federal Rulemaking for Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- An evaluation of Massachusetts' flavored tobacco restriction one year after policy implementation: Is it promoting equity?Journal of public health policy · 2026Article
- The tip of the iceberg: Profiling cooling agents using computational approaches to inform tobacco regulatory science.PloS one · 2026Article
- Examining the impact of England's menthol cigarette ban on postban smoking cessation: longitudinal findings from the England arm of the 2020-2022 ITC Four Country Smoking and Vaping Surveys.Tobacco control · 2025Article
- Residential segregation, housing cost, and smoking behaviors in Black Americans.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Article
- Health disparities in neurology.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2025Review
- AI Awareness and Tobacco Policy Messaging Among US Adults: Electronic Experimental Study.JMIR AI · 2025Article
- SimSmoke simulation models distinguished by race/ethnicity: past and future trends and the potential role of policy.Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Monographs · 2025Article
- Tobacco use behaviors in response to menthol restriction: A scoping review.Tobacco induced diseases · 2025Review
- Perceptions and Interest in Lung Cancer Screening by Smoking Status: A Cross-Sectional Study of HINTS 6 (2022).Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Unveiling the Tobacco Industry's Exploitative Legacy: A Call for Racial Equity through a Menthol Ban.Annals of the American Thoracic Society · 2024Article
- Dietary Patterns among Smokers and Non-Smokers: Findings from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) 2017-2018.Nutrients · 2024Article
- Community Voices: A Qualitative Study Exploring Perceptions of Menthol Cigarette Sales Restrictions in Los Angeles County Among Black Adults Who Smoke Menthol Cigarettes.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2024Article
- Youth and Young Adult Awareness of and Perceptions About Tobacco Marketing as a Social Justice Issue.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2024Article
- Impact of the European Union's menthol cigarette ban on smoking cessation outcomes: longitudinal findings from the 2020-2021 ITC Netherlands Surveys.Tobacco control · 2024Article
- Review
- Public health impact of a US menthol cigarette ban on the non-Hispanic black population: a simulation study.Tobacco control · 2023Article
- Smoking cessation prevalence by menthol cigarette use and select demographics among adults in the United States, TUS-CPS, 2003-2019.Preventive medicine reports · 2023Article
- Pain and Menthol Use Are Related to Greater Nicotine Dependence Among Black Adults Who Smoke Cigarettes at Wave 5 (2018-2019) of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundFor many years, national surveys have shown a consistently disproportionately high prevalence of menthol smokers among African Americans compared with the general population. However, to our knowledge, no prior study has quantified the harm that menthol smoking has caused on that population. In this work, we estimate the public health harm that menthol cigarettes have caused to the African American community over the last four decades.
methodsUsing National Health Interview Survey data, we employed a well-established simulation model to reproduce the observed smoking trajectory over 1980-2018 in the African American population. Then, we repeat the experiment, removing the effects of menthol on the smoking initiation and cessation rates over that period, obtaining a new hypothetical smoking trajectory. Finally, we compared both scenarios to calculate the public health harm attributable to menthol cigarettes over 1980-2018.
resultsOur results show that menthol cigarettes were responsible for 1.5 million new smokers, 157 000 smoking-related premature deaths and 1.5 million life-years lost among African Americans over 1980-2018. While African Americans constitute 12% of the total US population, these figures represent, respectively, a staggering 15%, 41% and 50% of the total menthol-related harm. DISCUSSION: Our results show that menthol cigarettes disproportionally harmed African Americans significantly over the last 38 years and are responsible for exacerbating health disparities among that population. Removing menthol cigarettes from the market would benefit the overall US population but, particularly, the African American community.
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