Here at the CCPH, we are often labeled substance use researchers — alcohol researchers and, most often for me, a tobacco researcher. This is mostly because our research is framed around the goal of ameliorating tobacco- or alcohol-related inequities. Don’t get me wrong – we are passionate about working towards a world where inequities in alcohol and tobacco use don’t exist. But, one of the crucial things that puts the “critical” in our public health research is that we don’t zero in on individuals’ behaviors but instead zoom out on the structures that surround people’s everyday lives.
How do our participants make sense of their own practices, like smoking, within this broader context? By taking this approach, tobacco-related inequities become just one of many symptoms in a broader pool of social and structural failures. What if our attention to eliminating these inequities involved a commitment to improving the social and structural conditions of the places where we live?
I’m often reminded of what Dwight Heath, a well-known anthropologist who himself is often labeled an alcohol researcher, wrote in his book Drinking Occasions: Comparative Perspectives on Alcohol and Culture. He reminded us that a focus on alcohol in research can serve “as a window through which to look at other aspects of life [and] we can see how parts of a sociocultural system work in relation to other parts” (Health 2000; pg192). The same can be said of tobacco use. Studying tobacco use can teach us not just about a behavior that people engage in, but can also serve as a lens for understanding the social, political, and economic conditions that structure people’s everyday lives.
Because of this, our research at the CCPH isn’t limited to the alcohol or tobacco research fields. Instead, narratives from our studies direct us towards modifiable conditions within participants’ everyday lives that need urgent attention. Housing and employment precarity, discrimination and stigma, inaccessible mental health care, and a lack of opportunities for pursuing pleasure are some of the most prominent conditions that structure the lives of our participants. So, our research considers the ways in which alcohol, tobacco, and/or drug use are “woven into woven into the very fabric of social existence, for better or worse,” directing our attention towards the ways in which our society fails some people, creating a quilt of inequalities.
Over the coming months, we will publish a series of blog posts highlighting the social and structural conditions that have emerged from our many studies as crucial antecedents of participants’ use of various substances. These discussions will highlight the breadth of our focus at the CCPH and draw attention to important critical public health issues that remain on the fringe in the alcohol and tobacco fields in the United States.
Follow on BlueSky
- Resisting Attacks on Science - March 21, 2025
- Self Censorship in Research - March 17, 2025
- Critical Public Health Perspectives on Rural Outrage - March 10, 2025
