Electronic nicotine devices considered through an equity lens

One of the biggest challenges facing the tobacco control community today is how to address the high rates of smoking by groups experiencing social and/or economic disadvantage. For example, half of all smokers in Australia are the most socio‐economically disadvantaged members of society. This pattern is evident in most high‐income countries where smoking rates are high among people with a mental illness or drug addiction, who are unemployed or homeless and who are in the lowest socio‐economic groups. These social groups have been exposed to the same levels and types of tobacco control measures as the rest of the population yet, unlike the rest of the population, cessation rates are low...