It's been 50 years since the U.S. Surgeon General's report on smoking and health spurred one of the largest public health behavior change success stories of the 20th century.

Before and since this groundbreaking report's release, psychology has been at the forefront of

smoking cessation efforts. Research into the biological and behavioral mechanisms of addiction

has led to many successful treatments for nicotine addicts. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Sherry McKee, a researcher whose work has focused on gender

differences in smoking, and she discusses why women have a harder time kicking the habit

and what science can do to help them quit. Sherry McKee has been working on finding out why women have a harder time quitting smoking than men.

Her work focuses on the role stress and depression play in smoking

behaviors for both men and women. She is director of the Yale Behavioral Pharmacology Laboratory.

She's also an associate professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. Her smoking research has been funded by the Office of Research on Women's Health and the National Institute of Drug Abuse.

Thank you for joining us, Dr. McKee.

Thank you for having me.

Is there a critical health disparity among female smokers?

And if so, what is being done to address that?

There are critical health disparities among women's smokers.

Smoking is still the leading cause of preventable morbidity or mortality in the U.S.

obesity is second, alcohol use is third.

We know that across industrialized nations, women smokers are going to be responsible for a half million deaths per year,

and this rate is expected to exponentially increase over the next 25 years.

Now, with regards to their health effects, when you equate

tobacco exposure between men and women, women are more susceptible to serious tobacco-related disease,

and this includes things like lung cancer and heart disease. Women also experience sex-specific

health risks primarily related to their reproductive health.

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