A new commentary paper in Nicotine and Tobacco Research, published by Oxford University Press, argues that recent cuts to the National Institutes of Health, including about $2 billion in terminated research grants and a $783 million cut to research funding linked to diversity and inclusion initiatives, will have a dramatically negative effect on efforts to combat tobacco usage and health disparities in the United States.
The health and economic burdens of commercial nicotine and tobacco use are high, contributing to about 480,000 premature US deaths annually and over $600 billion in US healthcare expenses and lost productivity, according to a study cited by the paper's authors. A 2024 US Surgeon General's Report maintained that "disparities in [tobacco] use persist by race and ethnicity, level of income, level of education, sexual orientation, gender identity, type of occupation, geography, and behavioral health status." Projects of the National Institutes of Health's Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities accounted for the largest proportion of terminated grants between January to April 2025. Such cuts have disproportionately impacted tobacco and nicotine research addressing racial equity and the health of sexual and gender minority people.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Office of Smoking and Health was among the departments eliminated entirely due to recent cuts. This office led the well-known "Tips from Former Smokers" campaign. In its first six years, according to a study cited by the paper's authors, the campaign prevented nearly 130,000 premature deaths, saved $7.3 billion in healthcare costs, and led to nearly 2.1 million additional calls to state tobacco quit lines.
The researchers here argue that the elimination of the Office of Smoking and Health will significantly hamper efforts at state and local levels to address tobacco use and disparities. The office funded the nationwide network of quit lines. This will likely result in significant cuts to staffing, state quit lines, and access to tobacco prevention and cessation resources. Seven states have now lost or reduced their quit line funding.
Recent layoffs of senior leadership, scientists, and employees at the US Food & Drug Administration's Center for Tobacco Products may also have serious consequences, according to the authors. They cite research that estimates that the office's "The Real Cost" youth tobacco prevention campaign prevented nearly 450,000 children from starting to vape between 2023 and 2024.
"As members of the Health Equity Network of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, we felt it was our collective duty to co-author this commentary," said the paper's lead author, Jin Kim-Mozeleski. "Our goal was to emphasize the health equity aspect of tobacco control and to outline some actionable steps we can all take as public health stakeholders."
The paper, "Act Now to Save Science: The Importance of Tobacco Health Equity Research," is available (at midnight on September 30th) at https://academic.oup.com/nictob/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/nictob/ntaf186 .
Direct correspondence to:
Jin E. Kim-Mozeleski
Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods
Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Cleveland, OH
