The recent months have brought significant uncertainty, marked by threats to our public health infrastructure, loss of funding, and the reduction of the essential public health workforce. These changes have jeopardized the long-standing, monumental efforts of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office on Smoking and Health to reduce tobacco prevalence, promote tobacco cessation, and eliminate disparities in tobacco use in the U.S. An article I recently read reaffirmed what we have long known: quitting smoking is beneficial at any age.1 The research quantified the impact of smoking on mortality across all age groups, including those 65 and older. It found that quitting smoking early in adulthood can lead to substantial gains in life expectancy. Specifically, if individuals quit smoking at ages 35, 45, 55, 65, or 75, they could avoid an average loss of 8, 5.6, 3.4, 1.7, and 0.7 years of life, respectively. This translates to regaining 20.6%, 18.6%, 15.2%, 11.3%, and 7.5% of their life expectancy compared to their peers who continue to smoke. These findings underscore that quitting cigarette smoking is the single most effective action individuals can take to live longer and healthier lives, regardless of their age. Facilitating smoking cessation is one of the most impactful interventions we can offer.
Despite current challenges, our commitment and dedication to reducing tobacco use and its associated health disparities remain front and center at the SCLC. We have remained focused on ensuring that providers and advocates have access to the tools and resources they need to promote tobacco cessation in their communities. We are ensuring that our cessation tools are responsive to the evolving landscape of tobacco and nicotine products.
I would like to share some highlights from the past six months, along with a preview of upcoming developments for the rest of 2025.
The National Partnership on Behavioral Health and Tobacco Use
The National Partnership on Behavioral Health and Tobacco Use consists of 22 organizations from the tobacco control, public health, government, and behavioral health sectors. Together, we are committed to reducing large gaps in access to tobacco treatment in behavioral health populations. The 22 partners convened in person in October 2024, embarking on a path towards Collective Impact, and coalesced into three working groups:
- Communications and Messaging. The partners are creating ready-to-use slide decks for partners and other users with information on the harms of tobacco use, tobacco treatment approaches, resources, and citations.
- Education, Treatment Resources, and Guidelines. After reviewing position statements on tobacco policy and treatment from National Partners and other organizations, the partners are generating a collective call to action statement and providing guidelines for optimal position statements on tobacco policy, prevention, and treatment.
- Systems and Settings that Engage Priority Populations. Partners are exploring barriers to and facilitators of addressing tobacco use within the criminal legal system, working with Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics and other National Partners to identify opportunities for treatment among populations re-entering the community from jails and prisons.
Resource and Toolkit Development. We are developing content and adapting our cessation-focused toolkit for behavioral health providers with a lens on intersectionality. The toolkit will include new content for service providers who support all adults who use tobacco, including those with intersectional identities of race and ethnicity, sex and gender, as well as behavioral health and tobacco use.
Convening a Community Advisory and Lived Experience Board. Together with our partner, the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, we plan to convene a Community Advisory Board and Lived Experience Board to inform the work of our two Centers and the National Partnership. The Community Advisory Board will consist of public health and community members who bring regional and systems-level insights, while the Lived Experience Board will be composed of individuals who represent priority populations who face tobacco-related disparities.
California Center for Tobacco Cessation (CaCTC)
At CaCTC, SCLC’s California-specific project, we hosted regional trainings on tobacco use and behavioral health in two counties: Shasta County and Orange County. Thirty-four attendees from six rural Northern California Counties attended the training in Shasta County, while 59 attended the training in Orange County. We strive to deliver content that is directly applicable to our learners. We are happy to report that across both trainings there was an 83% increase in attendees who felt very to extremely confident in treating tobacco use following the training. Additionally, 96% of all attendees rated the trainings as very good or excellent. In partnership with the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, we held four virtual and in-person Tobacco Treatment Specialist Trainings, attended by 116 learners representing 17 California Counties. We have two more regional trainings planned for Los Angeles and Sacramento Counties. Since 2023, we have educated 2,828 Californians. We are proud of our reach within California and continue to promote and publicize our technical assistance services, trainings, and resources to reach diverse communities in California.
In my last Director’s Corner, I shared that we are conducting an analysis of data from 2021-2022 California Health Interview Survey to understand the association of intersecting identities of sexual orientation, gender, race, and ethnicity on tobacco use, vaping, cannabis use, cigarette quit attempts, and perceptions of healthcare access and quality. We found disparities in tobacco, vaping, and cannabis co-use behaviors and perceptions of health care access among racial and ethnic minorities who also identified as sexual and gender minorities. These findings will inform our current efforts with California’s Medi-Cal Managed Care Programs to better reach and address unmet tobacco treatment needs among these populations in California. We are currently preparing these findings for publication.
National Behavioral Health Network for Tobacco and Cancer Control (NBHN)
We co-hosted two highly attended webinars with our partners at the NBHN (see below). In partnership with NBHN, our team serves as faculty on the 2025 Community of Practice entitled “Supporting Tobacco-Free Recovery for Next-Generation Thriving Heroes (STRENGTH): a CoP Supporting the Wellbeing of U.S. Veterans with Disabilities”. This CoP is cosponsored by NBHN’s sister network, the Disability Network for Tobacco and Cancer Control, which is part of the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors (NACDD).
SCLC’s Robust Offering of Webinars
So far in 2025, we’ve hosted several webinars covering a range of topics, including mental health and tobacco use, tobacco use in the veteran population, tobacco and nicotine use patterns in the U.S., and treatment opportunities for all individuals, including those who identify as sexual and gender minorities. In April 2025, we co-hosted the It’s About a Billion Lives Symposium with our partner, the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. The recorded versions of these webinars are linked below. I’ll be watching these again!
- Neurobiology and Recovery: Addressing Nicotine Use Among Individuals with Serious Mental Illness, co-hosted by the National Behavioral Health Network for Tobacco & Cancer Control
- It’s About a Billion Lives 2025 Symposium
- From Service to Support: Addressing Tobacco Use in Veterans, co-hosted by the National Behavioral Health Network for Tobacco & Cancer Control
- 2024 Cessation Updates: Year in Review
SCLC Publications
In June, a short communication was published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence on the availability of tobacco treatment and policies in mental health and substance use treatment facilities in the U.S. This publication was supported by our prior National Center for Excellence for Tobacco-Free Recovery grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
New Developments for 2025
We continue to explore funding opportunities with our partners to fill the large gap in access to tobacco treatment for adults with criminal legal system involvement in the U.S. In parallel, we are creating new resources, building our team’s skill sets, and exploring funding opportunities that address tobacco, vaping, and cannabis use among young people. These developments are aligned with our strategic plan focused on education and capacity building, implementation and research, and community engagement.
In these times of upheaval, please remember, you’re not in this alone. Our team at SCLC is here to support your efforts in promoting tobacco treatment and recovery, and we deeply value your partnership.
On behalf of our team at the SCLC, we wish you a relaxing remainder of the summer! Please reach out for collaborations, partnerships, and/or if we can be of any assistance in your current tobacco treatment and recovery efforts. We look forward to seeing many of you in August 2025 in Chicago, Illinois at the National Conference on Tobacco or Health.
References
1. Le, Thuy TT, Mendez D, Warner KE. The Benefits of Quitting Smoking at Different Ages. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2024;67(5):684-688. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2024.06.020