https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0876-3304
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Caitlin Notley, Renee D Goodwin, Person-First Language in Nicotine and Tobacco Research, Nicotine & Tobacco Research, Volume 27, Issue 4, April 2025, Pages 573–574, https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntaf003
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In 2022, Nicotine and Tobacco Research published an Editorial suggesting it may be time we stop using the word “smoker” to refer to people who smoke tobacco.1 A strong argument was made that the term lacks precision, since referring to a person as a “smoker” is neither a precise nor particularly distinguishing description of a human being, even in the context of scientific papers on tobacco use, since it can have so many meanings. In continuing to employ this term, given its lack of scientific meaning and the social stigma associated with substance use generally in society, NTR’s continued endorsement of this term may perpetuate the ongoing stigmatization of a person engaging in the behavior. To develop this argument further, and in response to the suggestion that it would “best serve our field’s research, clinical treatment, and public health prevention aims of reducing tobacco use if we change, or at least consciously revisit, our terminology,”2 we propose that the field should move toward person-first language with the primary rationale being that in order to successfully communicate in science, our language must be scientifically accurate. A secondary outcome of this approach would be one that we can, we hope, broadly agree on: respecting all people equally, which follows that we use identifiers that put our common identity—as complex, unique individuals first and foremost—rather than prioritizing an identifier based on one particular behavior in which a person may engage.
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