Persons with depression are more likely to smoke cigarettes and have greater difficulty quitting smoking. Community-based and public health approaches may need to begin considering the links between depression and smoking in order to best target the current smokers in the population and develop more effective tobacco control campaigns.

The COVID-19 crisis has created a "mental health pandemic" throughout the world. Scientific data are not available to fully understand the nature of the resulting mental health impact given the very recent onset of the pandemic, nevertheless, there is a need to act immediately to develop psychotherapeutic strategies that may alleviate pandemic-related distress. The psychological distress, in particular fear and sadness, is a function of the pandemic's negative impact upon people's ability to meet their most basic needs (e.g., physical safety, financial security, social connection, participation in meaningful activities). This paper presents evidence-based cognitive behavioral strategies that should prove useful in reducing the emotional suffering associated with the COVID crisis.

Persons with alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and substance use disorders (SUDs) appear to be heavily affected by cigarette smoking. In order to address the consequences of smoking in this population, an understanding of the current state of knowledge is needed. Epidemiologic research provides the opportunity to obtain detailed information on smoking behaviors in large community samples. The aim of this paper was to synthesize the epidemiologic evidence on smoking among persons with AUDs/SUDs and suggest directions for future research. Literature searches of Medline and PubMed were used to identify articles and additional articles were elicited from publication reference lists. To be included in the review, papers had to be published in English, analyze epidemiologic data, and examine an aspect of smoking behavior in persons with AUDs/SUDs. Twenty-nine studies met inclusion criteria and were included in the review. In summary, epidemiologic evidence to date suggests greater lifetime and current smoking, nicotine dependence, and non-cigarette tobacco use; lower quitting; and differences in quit attempts and withdrawal symptoms for persons with AUDs/SUDs compared to other people. Most studies examined nationally representative data and were conducted on persons in the United States and Australia. Few publications examined outcomes by demographics (e.g., gender, age) but these studies suggested that specific patterns differ by demographic subgroups. More research is needed on persons with AUDs/SUDs in order to develop the most effective public health and clinical interventions to reduce smoking behaviors, improve cessation outcomes, and reduce the harmful consequences of smoking for those with AUDs/SUDs.

Background Persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH) smoke at higher rates than other adults and experience HIV-related and non-HIV-related adverse smoking consequences. The current study conducted a systematic review to synthesize current knowledge about gender differences in smoking behaviors among PLWH. Methods Over three thousand abstracts from MEDLINE were reviewed and seventy-nine publications met all of the review inclusion criteria (i.e., reported data on smoking behaviors for PLWH by gender). Sufficient data were available to conduct a meta-analysis for one smoking variable: current smoking prevalence. Results Across studies (n=51), the meta-analytic prevalence of current smoking among female PLWH was 36.3% (95% CI=28.0%-45.4%) and male PLWH was 50.3% (95% CI=44.4%-56.2%; meta-analytic OR=1.78, 95% CI=1.29-2.45). When analyses were repeated just on United States (U.S.) studies (n=23), the prevalence of current smoking was not significantly different for female PLWH (55.1%, 95% CI=47.6%-62.5%) compared to male PLWH (55.5%, 95% CI=48.2%-62.5%; meta-analytic OR=1.04, 95% CI=0.86-1.26). Few studies reported data by gender for other smoking variables (e.g., quit attempts, non-cigarette tobacco product use) and results for many variables were mixed. Discussion Unlike the general U.S. population, there was no difference in smoking prevalence for female versus male PLWH (both >50%) indicating that HIV infection status was associated with a greater relative increase in smoking for women than men. More research is needed in all areas of smoking behavior of PLWH to understand similarities and differences by gender in order to provide the best interventions to reduce the high smoking prevalence for all genders.