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Comment
. 2017 Oct 2;6(1):51.
doi: 10.1186/s13584-017-0177-9.

Racial and ethnic disparities in smoking prevalence in Israel and the United States: progress to date and prospects for the future

Daniel S Blumenthal  1
Affiliations
Comment

Racial and ethnic disparities in smoking prevalence in Israel and the United States: progress to date and prospects for the future

Daniel S Blumenthal. Isr J Health Policy Res. .

Abstract

An article in this journal in 2016 demonstrated that smoking prevalence among Arab men in Israel is greater than among their Jewish counterparts born in Israel, while the reverse is true among Arab and Jewish Israeli women. This is reflected in lung cancer mortality rates. In the U.S., smoking prevalence in the mid-1960s was 20% higher in African American men than in white men, but has since decreased in both groups, and smoking prevalence in the two groups is now nearly identical. The black-white disparity in lung cancer mortality rates has been reduced by more than half as compared to its zenith in the early 1990s. The strategies employed to achieve these gains will continue to be important going forward, and successful strategies employed in Israel in addressing smoking in the male Arab population will be of increasing interest in the U.S. as its Arab population increases.

Keywords: Disparities; Lung cancer; Smoking; Smoking cessation; Tobacco.

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Conflict of interest statement

Author information

The author is Professor Emeritus of Community Health and Preventive Medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta GA, USA, and Extraordinary Professor of Community Health at Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa. He is Immediate Past President of the American College of Preventive Medicine.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable: this commentary is not a research report and no human subjects are involved.

Consent for publication

Not applicable: this manuscript includes no data on any individual person.

Competing interests

The author declare that there are no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Smoking rates, United States, 1965–2013
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Lung Cancer Mortality Rates, United States, 1950–2010
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

References

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