About this Research Topic

Background

People with substance use disorders and people living with mental illness bear some of the heaviest burden when it comes to tobacco-related morbidity and mortality. Evidence suggests that the prevalence of tobacco use amongst people in these groups is between 25% and 80%, with some evidence suggesting these rates have remained stubbornly high in the face of effective public health campaigns that have reduced this prevalence in the general population.

The reasons for higher smoking rates and seemingly lower tobacco cessation success are complex and relate to barriers at systems, organizational, practitioner and individual levels.

High quality research, spanning the realms of individual and dual diagnosis, is needed to refocus tobacco cessation efforts at the frontline of systems change, intervention and support for people with substance use disorders and those living with mental illness.

The goals of this Research Topic are to:

- highlight recent advances in knowledge and practice in the tobacco control and mental health/substance use disorder disciplines, including prevention of tobacco use, increases in cessation, and novel approaches to measuring and addressing tobacco-related health disparities.
- present cutting-edge, high-quality studies of tobacco use among people living with mental illness/substance use disorders, in order to bridge the dual diagnosis gap and reinforce the need for evidence-based implementation, practice and intervention in this area.

Investigators from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds, such as general practitioners, psychiatrists, allied health professionals, addiction medicine specialists and public health specialists, are encouraged to submit to this Research Topic. The intent of this Research Topic is to curate a practical and rigorous collection of articles that demonstrate the impacts of tobacco use and related disparities as well as the effective strategies required to curb these disparities.

We welcome Original Research articles, case reports of clinical cohorts, and review articles addressing the above aims.
We specifically encourage submissions addressing the following topics as they relate to people living with mental illness/substance use disorders:

• Consumer led/co-developed approaches to addressing tobacco use or tobacco-related disparities;
• Policy, organizational and systems-level approaches to reducing tobacco use or tobacco-related disparities;
• Novel approaches to reducing tobacco-related disparities or to delivering interventions (including technologies);
• Epidemiological studies quantifying tobacco use/tobacco-related disparities and their impacts across the life-course;
• Studies that demonstrate the interplay between tobacco use or tobacco-related disparities and the social determinants of health;
• Studies that examine cost effectiveness or other impact analysis metrics of interventions and policies for tobacco prevalence reduction.

Keywords: substance use, tobacco, mental illness

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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