NASEM Releases Report on Health Effects and Use Patterns of Premium Cigars

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recently released a report, “Premium Cigars: Patterns of Use, Marketing, and Health Effects.” The report found that overall cigar consumption has increased every year since the late 1990s, with a total increase of 145 percent from 1998 to 2020. The report details 13 findings, 24 conclusions, and nine priority research recommendations. Further, the report assesses the state of evidence on premium cigar characteristics, current patterns of use, marketing and perceptions of products, and short-and long-term health effects.

NASEM’s recommendations for federal agencies include:

• Development of formal categories and definitions of all cigar types to be used for research to ensure consistency among studies
• Implementation of a strategic plan to regularly monitor patterns of use, product characteristics, consumer knowledge, collection of sales and marketing data
• Improvement of survey data collection
• Research to assess specific aspects of premium cigars for characteristics, health effects, addiction potential, marketing practices, and consumer perceptions and knowledge

The full NASEM report is available here.