Publications by authors named "Joseph McClernon"

Chronic pain affects ~20% of the adult population and is associated with smoking. Smoking and pain worsen each other in the long term, but short-term temporal associations between smoking and pain throughout the day are unclear. Understanding these relationships may inform strategies for managing comorbid smoking and pain.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims: Over the recent decades, smoking among women has become an increasingly pressing public health challenge. Mounting evidence suggests that, compared to men, women's smoking is more strongly influenced by habitual responses to sensorimotor cues. To understand the brain mechanisms underlying the cessation challenges commonly reported by women who smoke, the present study used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to investigate sex-related volumetric differences in the dorsal striatum, a region implicated in habitual substance use behavior, and their associations with self-reported quit interest among daily smoking adults.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Randomized trials seek efficient treatment effect estimation within target populations, yet scientific interest often also centers on subpopulations. Although there are typically too few subjects within each subpopulation to efficiently estimate these subpopulation treatment effects, one can gain precision by borrowing strength across subpopulations, as is the case in a basket trial. While dynamic borrowing has been proposed as an efficient approach to estimating subpopulation treatment effects on primary endpoints, additional efficiency could be gained by leveraging the information found in secondary endpoints.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Organizations supporting translational research and translational science, including Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) hubs, provide a diverse and often changing array of resources, support, and services to a myriad of researchers and research efforts. While a wide-ranging scope of programs is essential to the advancement of translational research and science, it also complicates a systematic and unified process for tracking activities, studying research processes, and examining impact. To overcome these challenges, the Duke University School of Medicine's CTSA hub created a data platform, Translational Research Accomplishment Cataloguer (TRACER), that provides capacity to enhance strategic decision-making, impact assessment, and equitable resource distribution.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the correlation between tobacco retail outlet (TRO) density and increased cotinine levels, a marker of smoke exposure, in pregnant individuals and their children.
  • It simulates the impact of various policy recommendations to reduce TROs in North Carolina, finding that these policies could potentially lower cotinine levels and decrease emergency department visits among pregnant individuals.
  • The research suggests that implementing policies like limiting TRO density and establishing minimum distance between outlets is effective, with a combined approach offering the greatest potential benefits, albeit with possible challenges in execution.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • One-fifth of US adults suffer from chronic pain, which is linked to higher consumption of tobacco and cannabis, but the connections between these substances and pain are not well studied.
  • The study analyzed data from nearly 32,000 adults over several years to understand how substance use impacts pain levels and vice versa, finding that those who used cannabis, tobacco, or both had a higher likelihood of experiencing significant pain.
  • Additionally, individuals with moderate to severe pain were more likely to use cannabis, tobacco, or both later on, suggesting a mutual influence between pain intensity and substance use patterns.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: There are significant rural/urban disparities that exist in cancer and chronic disease morbidity and mortality, many of which are attributed to increased tobacco use prevalence in rural populations compared to urban. Understanding differences in rural and urban tobacco use patterns is key to developing targeted interventions.

Methods: Using nationally representative data from Wave 5 of the Population Assessment of Tobacco Use and Health (PATH), we examined weighted frequencies and conducted multivariable logistic regression to examine the use of cessation supports in people who currently smoke with a quit attempt in the last 12 months (recent attempters) by rural and urban status and geographic region.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Co-use of cannabis and tobacco poses greater risks than use of either substance individually and may be becoming more prevalent with increasing cannabis medicalization and legalization. We aimed to assess trends in the prevalence of cannabis and tobacco co-use between 2002-2019 and identify the updated prevalence and correlates of co-use in 2021 among US adults.

Methods: This study used data from the 2002-2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, a nationally-representative, cross-sectional survey in the US.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Prior research highlights that rural populations have been historically underrepresented/excluded from clinical research. The primary objective of this study was to describe the inclusion of rural populations within our research enterprise using Clinical Research Management System demographic information at a large academic medical center in the Southeast. This was a cross-sectional study using participant demographic information for all protocols entered into our Clinical Research Management System between May 2018 and March 2021.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Switching to Very Low Nicotine Content (VLNC) cigarettes reduces toxicant exposure and nicotine dependence, and may improve smoking cessation. However, non-compliance with VLNCs is often high, which may reduce their effectiveness. Here, we conducted secondary analyses of a pilot smoking cessation trial utilizing VLNCs to examine associations between pre-cessation VLNC compliance and changes in smoking rate, dependence, and abstinence self-efficacy, as well as quit outcomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Reducing cigarette addictiveness has the potential to avert millions of yearly tobacco-related deaths worldwide. Substantially reducing nicotine in cigarettes decreases cigarette consumption, but no large clinical trial has determined the effects of reduced-nicotine cigarettes when other nicotine-containing products are available. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of reduced-nicotine cigarettes in the context of the availability of alternative nicotine delivery systems.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the healthcare costs and usage linked to smoking during pregnancy using data from a birth cohort in North Carolina.
  • Increased cotinine levels (a marker of nicotine exposure) were found to correlate with higher emergency department visits and intensive care unit hours for both parents and infants.
  • Reducing smoking rates by even 5% could lead to significant cost savings, estimated at around $150,533 from emergency visits, indicating the potential economic benefits of smoking cessation programs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Translation of critical and broadly impactful health advancements is stymied by insufficient scientific scrutiny of barriers and roadblocks in the process. The Clinical & Translational Science Award (CTSA) funding opportunity announcement released in July 2021 makes clear the distinction between translational research and translational science (TS) and urges a shift from the former to the latter. This represents a significant shift in the overall scientific direction of the CTSA program and necessitates corresponding shifts in CTSA hub operations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study reviews the last 25 years of functional magnetic resonance imaging drug cue reactivity (FDCR) research, highlighting the gap between findings and clinical applications as no FDCR-derived biomarkers have been approved yet.
  • The objective is to summarize FDCR research, evaluate its readiness for biomarker development, and propose a systematic process for qualifying these biomarkers in the context of addiction treatment.
  • Out of 415 published FDCR studies from 1998 to 2022, a significant number explored addictive substances like nicotine and alcohol, suggesting potential for developing various types of biomarkers related to addiction, though most studies mainly focused on therapeutic and diagnostic responses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The prevalence of combusted cigarette (CC) smoking among older adults is stagnant, with 0 declines attributable to e-cigarette (EC) use. Given that normative beliefs are associated with quitting and switching to ECs, we assessed cross-sectional associations between age, CC, and EC descriptive and injunctive norms and potential interactions with tobacco use behavior.

Methods: Data are from people with current, established (≥100 lifetime CCs) CC use (n = 8072) at Wave 5 (2018-2019) of the adult Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Rural American communities are heavily affected by tobacco-related health disparities. This study aims to evaluate the prevalence of quit attempts (QAs) and factors that promote or impede QA among rural adults who smoke daily.

Methods: Data from Wave 5 of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health study were analyzed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Rates of tobacco and cannabis use are disproportionately high among individuals with pain, and evidence suggests that pain may engender greater likelihood of substance co-use, yielding additive risk. This study examined national associations of pain with past-month tobacco use, cannabis use, and co-use of tobacco and cannabis.

Methods: Data came from a nationally representative US sample of adults in Wave 5 (2018-2019) of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health study (N = 32,014).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Racial/ethnic minority status and mental illness independently drive inequity in cigarette smoking and related morbidity. Racial/ethnic minority groups suffer a disproportionate burden of tobacco-related diseases. People with serious mental illness (SMI) smoke at up to 7 times the rate of the general population.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: The prevalence of cigarette smoking among adults aged ≥55 has remained stagnant over the past decade. National data modelling suggests no reduction in cigarette smoking prevalence attributable to e-cigarette use in the USA among people aged ≥45. Misperceptions about the absolute risks (ie, cigarettes are not harmful) and relative risks (ie, e-cigarettes are more harmful than cigarettes) of tobacco products may contribute to sustained smoking prevalence and hesitancy to switch from cigarettes to e-cigarettes among older adults.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cue reactivity (CR) among smokers exposed to smoking-related stimuli, both proximal (e.g., cigarettes, lighter) and distal (environments, people), has been well-demonstrated.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Half of young adults who smoke use menthol cigarettes, which is associated with continued smoking and greater nicotine dependence. Additionally, early subjective reactions to cigarettes predict future use. Menthol may blunt the sensory effects of nicotine.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The United States Food and Drug Administration has the authority to reduce the nicotine content in cigarettes to minimal or non-addictive levels and could do so immediately or gradually over time. A large clinical trial compared the two approaches. This secondary analysis assesses abstinence and cessation-related outcomes one month after the trial concluded, when participants no longer had access to very low nicotine content (VLNC) research cigarettes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Smoking and smoke exposure among pregnant women remain persistent public health issues. Recent estimates suggest that approximately one out of four nonsmokers have measurable levels of cotinine, a marker indicating regular exposure to secondhand smoke. Epidemiological research has attempted to pinpoint individual-level and neighborhood-level factors for smoking during pregnancy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

More than 30% of cancer related deaths are related to tobacco or alcohol use. Controlling and restricting access to these cancer-causing products, especially in communities where there is a high prevalence of other cancer risk factors, has the potential to improve population health and reduce the risk of specific cancers associated with these substances in more vulnerable population subgroups. One policy-driven method of reducing access to these cancer-causing substances is to regulate where these products are sold through the placement and density of businesses selling tobacco and alcohol.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF