Identifies upward trend in cigar use as potential serious public health problem.

This User’s Guide is intended to support the design, implementation, analysis, interpretation, and quality evaluation of registries created to increase understanding of patient outcomes. For the purposes of this guide, a patient registry is an organized system that uses observational study methods to collect uniform data (clinical and other) to evaluate specified outcomes for a population defined by a particular disease, condition, or exposure, and that serves one or more predetermined scientific, clinical, or policy purposes. A registry database is a file (or files) derived from the registry. Although registries can serve many purposes, this guide focuses on registries created for one or more of the following purposes: to describe the natural history of disease, to determine clinical effectiveness or cost-effectiveness of health care products and services, to measure or monitor safety and harm, and/or to measure quality of care. Registries are classified according to how their populations are defined. For example, product registries include patients who have been exposed to biopharmaceutical products or medical devices. Health services registries consist of patients who have had a common procedure, clinical encounter, or hospitalization. Disease or condition registries are defined by patients having the same diagnosis, such as cystic fibrosis or heart failure. The User’s Guide was created by researchers affiliated with AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program, particularly those who participated in AHRQ’s DEcIDE (Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions About Effectiveness) program. Chapters were subject to multiple internal and external independent reviews.

The National Institutes of Health Publication 07-6242, The Role of the Media in Promoting and Reducing Tobacco Use, NCI Tobacco Control Monograph 19, (the 19th of the Tobacco Control Monograph series of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) provides a critical, scientific review and synthesis of current evidence regarding the power of the media both to encourage and discourage tobacco use. The work presented is the most current and comprehensive distillation of the scientific literature on media communications in tobacco promotion and tobacco control. The six main parts of this monograph deal with aspects of media communications relevant to tobacco promotion and tobacco control. Part 1, an overview, frames the rationale for the monograph's organization and presents the key issues and conclusions of the research as a whole and of the individual chapters. This section describes media research theories that guided this assessment of the relationship between media and tobacco use, which can be viewed as a multilevel issue ranging from consumer-level advertising and promotion to stakeholder-level marketing aimed toward retailers, policymakers, and others. Part 2 further explores tobacco marketing—the range of media interventions used by the tobacco industry to promote its products, such as brand advertising and promotion, as well as corporate sponsorship and advertising. This section also evaluates the evidence for the influence of tobacco marketing on smoking behavior and discusses regulatory and constitutional issues related to marketing restrictions. Part 3 explores how both the tobacco control community and the tobacco industry have used news and entertainment media to advocate their positions and how such coverage relates to tobacco use and tobacco policy change. The section also appraises evidence of the influence of tobacco use in movies on youth smoking initiation. Part 4 focuses on tobacco control media interventions and the strategies, themes, and communication designs intended to prevent tobacco use or encourage cessation, including opportunities for new media interventions. This section also synthesizes evidence on the effectiveness of mass media campaigns in reducing smoking. Part 5 discusses tobacco industry efforts to diminish media interventions by the tobacco control community and to use the media to oppose state tobacco control ballot initiatives and referenda. Finally, Part 6 examines possible future directions in the use of media to promote or to control tobacco use and summarizes research needs and opportunities. Key lessons from this volume can inform policymakers as well as scientists and practitioners. Most critical from a policy standpoint is the conclusion, supported by strong evidence, that both exposure to tobacco marketing and depictions of tobacco in movies promote smoking initiation. In the United States in 2005—the same year in which 2.7 million American adolescents aged 12 to 17 used cigarettes in the past month1 and 438,000 Americans died prematurely from diseases caused by tobacco use or secondhand smoke exposure2—the tobacco industry spent $13.5 billion (in 2006 dollars) on cigarette advertising and promotion,3 an average of $37 million per day. The tobacco industry continues to succeed in overcoming partial restrictions on tobacco marketing in the United States, and tobacco marketing remains pervasive and effective in promoting tobacco use. Efforts to curb the depiction of tobacco use in movies have increased in recent years, and the evidence reviewed here indicates that progress in this area could be expected to translate into lower rates of youth smoking initiation in the future. Strong evidence indicates that media campaigns can reduce tobacco use. This volume highlights the complexities of assessing the media's influence on tobacco-related attitudes and behavior. A vast range of research is reviewed.~

A study of the development and rejection of vitamin C as a treatment for cancer, this text also explores the evaluation process of such a contentious treatment. Based on social, economic and financial considerations, it sees these decisions as political rather than objective assessments.