Editorial: The Impact of Active and Passive Smoking upon Health and Neurocognitive Function

Tobacco smoking is a major risk factor for a number of chronic diseases, including a variety of cancers, lung disease, and damage to the cardiovascular system. The World Health Organization recently calculated that there were six million smoking-attributable deaths per year and that this number is due to rise to about eight million per year by the end of 2030. Recent work has demonstrated that habitual smoking in adults is associated with a range of health conditions, including cardiovascular disease, pulmonary dysfunction, and an increased risk of a variety of cancers. In terms of neurocognitive function, although some studies have found that acute smoking can enhance cognitive functions in the short term, actually chronic smoking is deleterious in the long term. Chronic smoking has been associated with reductions in working memory (the temporary storage and manipulation of information), executive function (planning tasks, focusing ones attention, and ignoring irrelevant distractions), and prospective memory (memory for everyday things, such as keeping an appointment, or taking an important medication on time). More recently, the focus on smoking-related health problems and neurocognitive deficits has expanded to include the study of " secondhand smoking " (also known as " passive smoking " – wherein a person who does not smoke him/herself inhales tobacco smoke either via side-stream smoke or via smoke being blown directly into his/her face). Research in this area has linked exposure to secondhand smoke in those who have never smoked to a range of health problems akin to smokers, including lung and cardiovascular disease, as well as deficits in neurocognitive function. In terms of neurocognitive function, exposure to secondhand smoke has been linked with an increased risk of mild cognitive impairments in older adults, reductions in working memory, as well as deficits in executive function. Interventions aimed at reducing cigarette consumption and improving the health of both smokers and those exposed to secondhand smoke continue to be developed. The aim of this Frontiers Research Topic is to bring together a collection of papers that look at what impact active and passive smoking has upon health and neurocognitive function; as well as to consider some of the wide variety of interventions aimed at reducing cigarette use and/ or improving health. Copeland examined pre-treatment characteristics among daily smokers (including smoking patterns, smoking outcome expectancies, and smoking-related health information) and how these related to success on a brief motivational enhancement intervention. Marshall et al. explored …