AIR a Key Partner in the 2014 Surgeon General's Report on Smoking & Health

The latest Surgeon General’s Report, “The Health Consequences of Smoking – 50 Years of Progress,” marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark reports warning about the health hazards of smoking. Fifty years, 20 million American deaths, and 32 Surgeon General Reports later, smoking has retained its decades-old spot as the largest single cause of preventable death and disease for U.S. citizens.

AIR has been partnering with the Office of the Surgeon General and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office on Smoking and Health to manage and support the development and preparation of the reports since 2010. AIR’s scientific and technical editorial staff provided research and editorial assistance to:

• Secure authors and support their scientific, editorial, administrative and information services needs.
• Track and document the review process, assuring version control and maintenance of all records for any future query or response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The report released on January 17, 2014 spans some 1,350 pages and incorporates the efforts of 87 authors and 120 reviewers representing both the private sector and Federal government agencies.

“AIR has a longstanding commitment to work in the tobacco control arena,” says Richard A. Yelle, who directed AIR’s work. “In the broader context of our historical tobacco control work – which includes the last three reports by the surgeon general – the 2014 report is of particular importance because of its reflective stance over half a century of tobacco control progress, as well as its assessment of the current state of tobacco control activities, and vision for the future.”

In the report’s Executive Summary message, United States Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius refers to the report as an “important reminder that public health efforts should continue to make tobacco death and disease part of our past.”

The report focuses on an overall historical perspective of tobacco control and environmental change; the health consequences of active and passive smoking in terms of advances in our knowledge of smoking’s health consequences – including smoking-attributable morbidity, mortality, and economic costs; tracking the changing landscape of tobacco control today; and a vision for ending the tobacco epidemic.

Additional Information

• For a comprehensive list of reports, as well as resources to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health, access the Surgeon General website.
• Supplementary CDC information on smoking and tobacco use is available.