September-October 2019 — Harvard Magazine: “Battles about the future of smoking have always been waged over children. For tobacco companies, the young represent the next generation of smokers. Public-health advocates like Barry Bloom and Jay Winsten, on the other hand, know that attitudes shaped as early as elementary school will ultimately affect how many youngsters will die prematurely from smoking, the leading cause of preventable death in the United States (each year, smoking claims nearly half a million lives, and leads to five million premature deaths). Now Bloom, formerly dean of the School of Public Health (SPH) and currently Jacobson Research Professor of public health, together with Winsten, Stanton director of SPH’s Center for Health Communication (CHC), are raising the alarm over a disturbing confluence of new enticements to smoking that target the nation’s most vulnerable cohort. The latest contests are being waged in movies and video games, on social media, and even in middle- and high-school bathrooms, where students are reportedly inhaling flavored tobacco-free products….Bloom, Winsten, and CHC deputy director Susan Moses are veterans of these battles.”
Read the ‘Right Now’ feature by Jonathan Shaw in Harvard Magazine
Center for Health Communication
