2014 J. Warren Perry Lecture to address vaping and e-cigarettes

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Lynn Kozlowski, PhD, former dean of the University at Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions, will present the school’s 26th Annual J. Warren Perry Distinguished Lecture on Thursday, Oct. 9, at 3 p.m. in Butler Auditorium, 150 Farber Hall, UB South Campus.

Kozlowski’s extensive research focuses on tobacco use and related behaviors, and his talk, “Thoughts and Data on the Hot Button Issues that Divide Us on Vaping and E-cigarettes,” will address the fierce public health dispute over their relative safety. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Kozlowski is the co-author of “Cigarettes, Nicotine and Health: A Biobehavioral Approach” (Behavioral Medicine and Health Psychology, 2001), and contributed to four Surgeon General Reports on smoking and health and two monographs of the National Cancer Institute. In 2006 he received a Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization Tobacco Control Award for his contributions to advancing tobacco control.

He has publicly commented on the problems consumers face over what he calls “the conflicting knot of news and commentary on e-cigarettes and vaping.”

As reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, some experts consider the use of these products pathways to the reduction or cessation of tobacco use. The tobacco-control community, however, characterizes them as dangerous products that undermine efforts to de-normalize smoking. It also responds with alarm to the expensive and widespread marketing campaigns that promote their use.

Kozlowski, a professor in UB’s Department of Community Health and Health Behavior, has long been a proponent of accurate reporting of health data. He has criticized misleading information about smokeless cigarettes on both sides of the issue and maintains that these products are not a causal gateway to tobacco use, although they may pose other problems.

His earlier work called for the proper labeling of tobacco products, and pointed out that harm-reduction options in cigarettes were misunderstood by smokers due to misleading health information.

Most recently, Kozlowski has studied whether tobacco-caused addiction is a tobacco-caused disease in and of itself. In addition, he has reported on variations in nicotine intake in U.S. cigarette smokers over the past 25 years, and examined nicotine dependence and withdrawal among smokers with a history of childhood abuse and among those with mental illnesses.

He is a senior editor of the journal Addiction and associate editor of Tobacco Control and has served on the editorial boards of the journals Drug and Alcohol Dependence, Psychology of Addictive Behaviors and the Journal of Substance Abuse. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Behavioral Medicine and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research.

The J. Warren Perry Award and Distinguished Lectureship is the School of Public Health and Health Professions’ lecture series honoring the late J. Warren Perry, PhD, founding dean of the School of Health Related Professions. Perry, a pioneer in the field of allied health, served as dean from 1966 until his retirement in 1977.

A prolific and accomplished scholar, administrator, author and lecturer, he was a national figure in his field and his work had an impact on health care delivery systems throughout the country. The Perry award and lectureship recognizes individuals who have provided exemplary leadership in public health, health professions or the health sciences.

Initiated in 1989 by the school’s former dean, Alan Stull, PhD, the lectureship introduces students, faculty and staff to some of the best leaders and scholars in a variety of fields.