Atomically Precise Carbyne-Nanoribbon Devices: Transmission Engineering through Ring Topology and Contact-Site Selection.

Although overall tobacco use has declined in the U.S., adults living in rural areas continue to experience a disproportionate burden of tobacco-related morbidity and mortality. Rural adults have consistently shown a higher cigarette smoking prevalence and lower smoking quit ratios than urban adults, contributing to persistent geographic disparities in tobacco-related outcomes despite overall declines., , Using the 2023 National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Urban/Rural Classification Scheme, 13.8% of U.S. residents lived in nonmetropolitan (referred to as rural in the remaining parts of this paper) areas in 2022, underscoring the importance of understanding how tobacco use continues to vary across urbanization levels in a sizable segment of the population. Prior national studies have shown that rural–urban differences in tobacco use are product specific rather than uniform across all tobacco products. Rural adults consistently use more cigarettes and smokeless tobacco than urban adults, whereas findings show little or no rural–urban difference in E-cigarette or cigar use., , Several factors may contribute to these rural–urban differences. Rural communities may face greater exposure to procigarette and smokeless tobacco use social norms; lower tobacco control funds and associated resources; higher tobacco retailer density; and limited access to healthcare, prevention, and cessation services. These conditions may reinforce the continued use of products with long-standing cultural and commercial footholds in rural areas, particularly cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. Recent analyses of 2023–2024 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data have described national tobacco use prevalence in the U.S., and a new NCHS report has described cigarette and E-cigarette use by urbanization level using the updated 2023 NCHS Urban-Rural Classification Scheme. Unadjusted analyses showed that cigarette and E-cigarette use increased with decreasing urbanization. However, less is known about whether these rural–urban differences in 2024 extend to any tobacco use, smokeless tobacco, cigars, daily use, and the number and patterns of products used, particularly in adjusted analyses with potential confounders. Because the 2024 NHIS was the first survey year to apply this updated classification, it provides an opportunity to reassess whether rural–urban disparities persist in the current tobacco product landscape. Furthermore, gaps remain in understanding rural–urban differences in polytobacco use and daily use of specific tobacco products, which might help clarify how rural–urban disparities are distributed across products and use patterns.