Their applied research will examine the value and usefulness of a smoking cessation program designed to break the generations-long cycle of nicotine addiction. We also want to describe the basic science of smoking, including how genes and environment interact to transmit susceptibility to becoming addicted to nicotine. Initial subjects for the project will come from 3,089 women enrolled in the ongoing National Collaborative Perinatal Project, conducted by Brown researchers, since 1959. The study will also follow children born to these women between 1959 and 1964, now between the ages of 34 and 40, and the children's offspring, many of whom are in their teen-age years. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation pledged additional funding to complement the efforts.
Tobacco use is the nation's leading preventable cause of premature death.
Tobacco-related disease causes more than 450,000 deaths each year, including 170,000 cancer deaths. The Brown University Center for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine, based at The Miriam Hospital, is part of the School of Medicine and a member of the Lifespan academic medical center.