Papers by mark parascandola
Tobacco Induced Diseases, 2018
Substance Use & Misuse, 2020
Background: Areca nut (AN) and betel quid (BQ) are classified as Group 1 carcinogens. There are a... more Background: Areca nut (AN) and betel quid (BQ) are classified as Group 1 carcinogens. There are approximately 600 million AN/BQ users globally; the majority of users live in the Asia-Pacific region which, correspondingly, has the highest rates of oral cancer. Despite significant disease burden associated with AN/BQ use, there have been no systematic reviews of interventions to reduce product use. Objectives: To analyze interventions that prevent use of AN/BQ, present a basis for a future systematic review on the topic, and provide decision makers with examples of strategies that have demonstrated reduced AN/BQ use. Methods: To identify publications, we searched the literature using terms for AN/BQ and related synonyms in three databases: PubMed, Embase, and Scopus. Interventions that prevent AN/BQ use, that are published in English and that provide original data analysis, were included in this review. Interventions focused primarily on disease outcomes e.g. oral cancers (secondary prevention) were excluded. Results: Our search revealed 21 interventions targeting AN/BQ use between 1990 and 2018. Strategies include product bans, media campaigns, education, cessation, and taxation at individual and population levels, with varying evidence of impact. While these studies yielded some novel and promising findings, particularly regarding the impact of product bans, mass media campaigns, and cessation interventions, research on interventions specific to AN/BQ use remains limited. Conclusions: We have assessed published interventions that reduce AN/BQ use and identified future research priorities. These findings can be used to develop evidence-based interventions and help guide policymakers in implementing evidence-based policy to regulate these products.
Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, Jan 27, 2018
Having HIV/AIDS has been associated with a higher prevalence of smoking. Moreover, evidence sugge... more Having HIV/AIDS has been associated with a higher prevalence of smoking. Moreover, evidence suggests that people with HIV/AIDS who smoke have poorer treatment and survival outcomes. The HIV-smoking relationship is understudied in sub-Saharan Africa, where tobacco use patterns and HIV prevalence differ greatly from other world regions. Cross-sectional data from the Demographic Health Surveys and AIDS Indicator Surveys, representing 25 sub-Saharan African countries, were pooled for analysis (n=286,850). The association between cigarette smoking and HIV status was analysed through hierarchical logistic regression models. This study also examined the relationship between smokeless tobacco use and HIV status. Smoking prevalence was significantly higher among men who had HIV/AIDS than among men who did not (25.90% vs. 16.09%; p < 0.0001), as was smoking prevalence among women who had HIV/AIDS compared with women who did not (1.15% vs. 0.73%; p < 0.001). Multivariate logistic regress...
Preventive Medicine, 2015
Objectives-The purpose of this study is to evaluate and describe transitions in cigarette and smo... more Objectives-The purpose of this study is to evaluate and describe transitions in cigarette and smokeless tobacco (ST) use, including dual use, prospectively from adolescence into young adulthood. Methods-The current study utilizes four waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine patterns of cigarette and ST use (within 30 days of survey) over time among a cohort in the United States beginning in 7th-12th grade (1995) into young adulthood (2008-2009). Transition probabilities were estimated using Markov modeling. Results-Among the cohort (N = 20,774), 48.7% reported using cigarettes, 12.8% reported using ST, and 7.2% reported dual use (cigarettes and ST in the same wave) in at least one wave. In general, the risk for transitioning between cigarettes and ST was higher for males and those who were older. Dual users exhibited a high probability (81%) of continuing dual use over time. Conclusions-Findings suggest that adolescents who use multiple tobacco products are likely to continue such use as they move into young adulthood. When addressing tobacco use among adolescents and young adults, multiple forms of tobacco use should be considered.
Social science & medicine (1982), 2015
In addition to their primary goal of protecting nonsmokers from secondhand smoke, smoke-free air ... more In addition to their primary goal of protecting nonsmokers from secondhand smoke, smoke-free air laws may also encourage intentions to quit smoking, quit attempts, and cessation among smokers. However, laws may not encourage quitting if smokers feel threatened by them and react defensively. This study examined whether spontaneous self-affirmation - the extent to which people think about their values or strengths when they feel threatened - may reduce smokers' reactance to smoke-free laws, enhancing the ability of the laws to encourage quitting. We linked state-level information on the comprehensiveness of U.S. smoke-free laws (compiled in January, 2013 by the American Lung Association) with data from a U.S. health survey (Health Information National Trends Survey) collected from September-December, 2013 (N = 345 current smokers; 587 former smokers). Smoke-free laws interacted with self-affirmation to predict quit attempts in the past year and intentions to quit in the next six m...
Introduction: Although the prevalence of smoking in Spain has decreased in recent years due to to... more Introduction: Although the prevalence of smoking in Spain has decreased in recent years due to tobacco control efforts, it still remains high (35.3% for men and 24% for women). Spain provides a useful case study for understanding strategies used by tobacco companies in the penetration of new markets. Multinational tobacco companies entered the Spanish market during the 1970s and 1980s, when Spain was particularly vulnerable, as it emerged from decades of fascism. A deeper investigation into the industry’s approach to influence advertising regulations and target women and youth in Spain can provide useful lessons for other countries with emerging tobacco markets currently pursuing tobacco control. Methods: A keyword search of the University of California San Francisco’s Legacy Tobacco Document’s Library was conducted, followed by complementary searchers on PubMed, newspaper, and other relevant websites. Results: During the 1970s, multinational tobacco companies developed agricultural...
International journal of epidemiology, 2014
Emerging themes in epidemiology, Jan 10, 2006
The epidemiologic literature is replete with conceptual discussions about causal inference, but l... more The epidemiologic literature is replete with conceptual discussions about causal inference, but little is known about how the causal criteria are applied in public health practice. The criteria for causal inference in use today by epidemiologists have been shaped substantially by their use over time in reports of the U.S. Surgeon General on Smoking and Health. We reviewed two classic reports on smoking and health from expert committees convened by the US Surgeon General, in 1964 and 1982, in order to evaluate and contrast how the committees applied causal criteria to the available evidence for the different cancer sites at different time periods. We focus on the evidence for four cancer sites in particular that received detailed reviews in the reports: lung, larynx, esophagus and bladder. We found that strength of association and coherence (especially dose-response, biological plausibility and epidemiologic sense) appeared to carry the most weight; consistency carried less weight, a...
Science, 2002
Baltimore federal judge has effectively scuttled the arguments behind an $800 million lawsuit bro... more Baltimore federal judge has effectively scuttled the arguments behind an $800 million lawsuit brought by a man who claims he got a brain tumor from using a cell phone. Last week's ruling by U.S. District Judge Catherine Blake is seen as a major setback for those claiming that cell phones can damage health. The 23-page ruling, the most substantial court review of the cell phone issue to date, provides a textbook example of how federal courts are now taking a closer look at the quality of scientific evidence. It concluded that lawyers for Christopher Newman, the Baltimore neurologist who brought the lawsuit, had provided "no sufficiently reliable and relevant scientific evidence" to support the claim that using an analog mobile phone for 6 years caused his tumor. The judge served notice that she intends to dismiss Newman's claims if she receives no objections before 30 October. Newman's suit became a leading test of how the federal courts would respond to scientific arguments that underlie pending legal actions against cell phone makers. Blunt messa Newman's legal team, led by idence that cl the Baltimore firm of Peter Angelos, hoped to establish that Motorola Inc., a group of local wireless service providers, and the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association had sold defective and dangerous products without informing consumers about the risks. The lawyers planned to call epidemiologists and experts on the biological effects of radio frequency emissions to support their allegations (Science, 16 November 2001, p. 1440). But a year ago, several industry defendants in the case filed a motion to block Newman's scientific witnesses from testifying. They cited the landmark 1993 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., which directs
Revue d'histoire des sciences, 2011
Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Armand Colin. © Armand Colin. Tous droits réservés pour... more Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Armand Colin. © Armand Colin. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit.
Public Health Reports, 2004
Philosophy of Science, 1996
Attempts at quantification turn up in many areas within the modern courtroom, but nowhere more th... more Attempts at quantification turn up in many areas within the modern courtroom, but nowhere more than in the realm of toxic tort law. Evidence, in these cases, is routinely presented in statistical form. The vagueness inherent in phrases such as ‘balance of probabilities’ and ‘more likely than not’ is reinterpreted to correspond to precise mathematical values. Standing alone these developments would not be a cause for great concern. But in practice courts and commentators have routinely mixed up incompatible quantities, leading to grave injustice. I argue that these confusions result from an unjustified assumption of universal causal determinism.
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 2004
The discipline of modern "risk factor" epidemiology was in its formative stages in the early 1950... more The discipline of modern "risk factor" epidemiology was in its formative stages in the early 1950s, when epidemiologic studies revealed a strong association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer mortality. Many medical scientists and physicians were reluctant to accept these studies as a demonstration of causation because the methods were "statistical" and involved data collected in uncontrolled conditions outside the laboratory. But a substantial number of senior biostatisticians and epidemiologists also voiced concerns, albeit more methodologically sophisticated, about the quality of the evidence at the time. Statistical methods were just beginning to work their way into medicine and public health, and many epidemiologists and statisticians were concerned about the potential misuse of these methods by untrained investigators.When studies of smoking and lung cancer gained increasing publicity and were being used to recommend public health policies, some prominent epidemiologists and statisticians highlighted this debate in their efforts to pursue methodological reform. Participants in the debate over smoking and lung cancer saw the need for explicit and rigorous standards for evaluating etiologic hypotheses, but they held conflicting views about what those standards should be. These diverging views reflect an underlying tension within the discipline of epidemiology between the search for "objective" methods of scientific inference and the practical needs of public health research that persists today.
Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 2009
modifi ed cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products (Pederson & Nelson, 2007). Currently, evidenc... more modifi ed cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products (Pederson & Nelson, 2007). Currently, evidence is insuffi cient to determine whether these products result in meaningful reductions in risk or exposure compared with conventional tobacco products (Stratton, Shetty, Wallace, & Bondurant, 2001). Moreover, the marketing of PREPs poses substantial challenges for tobacco control efforts as tobacco control advocates and public health experts have raised concerns that use of these products may serve as an alternative to cessation for smokers or as a gateway to tobacco use initiation among nonusers (
Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 2003
Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2007
Conflicts of interest policies have become a part of the fabric of the conduct of biomedical rese... more Conflicts of interest policies have become a part of the fabric of the conduct of biomedical research, yet such concerns are relatively recent history. Until the 1960s, concerns about conflicts of interest were confined to scientists who served as government advisors and contractors. However, in the 1970s, as a range of environmental and consumer safety issues gained public attention, the conclusions of researchers frequently came under attack because of concerns about experts' financial ties to private industry. These debates typically focused on evaluating potential carcinogens in the environment. In response, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) developed its first conflict of interest policy, requiring committee members to disclose any “potential sources of bias” that “others might deem prejudicial.” Scientists universally opposed the policy, however, for a range of reasons—while some argued that all experienced and knowledgeable experts were inherently conflicted, others ...
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Papers by mark parascandola