https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9898-3049
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Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, Addressing Tobacco-Related Disparities Through Tobacco Treatment Research: A Roadmap With Worked Examples, Nicotine & Tobacco Research, Volume 27, Issue 5, May 2025, Pages 781–782, https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntaf025
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We are fortunate in the tobacco control community that we have—and are in the process of continually refining and improving—frameworks to work toward addressing health disparities. Helping people quit smoking is a critical component of reducing health disparities, and the May 2025 edition of NTR includes a helpful summary of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT) Treatment Research Network’s 2023 preconference workshop on engaging specific populations with tobacco-related health disparities in treatment research.1
The workshop paper provides recommendations and guidelines to shape our research in this space moving forward. In this editorial, I want to summarize some of these and then highlight their execution in articles from this issue of NTR, pointing to their continued relevance. The SRNT workshop paper identified: the value of developing a community advisory board and appropriately compensating membership of that board; starting early, building trust, and staying connected with community partners; sharing information and resources; being ready to adapt interventions and assessments to the relevant context or culture; and making content meaningful and accessible to the population of interest. It concluded by highlighting key areas for future research, namely increasing the understanding of how racism, discrimination, or other systemic barriers affect tobacco treatment access, utilization and cessation outcomes; including holistic approaches incorporating multiple levels and domains of influence; investigating the extent to which cultural and contextual factors influence treatment and engagement and outcomes; and developing interventions that can target unique needs as well as address pressing social needs. Finally, the paper notes the importance of considering intersectionality, one implication being the need to consider how to best triage individuals to specialized programs and offer appropriately tailored content.
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