Description:  This talk presents findings from multiple studies examining the public health impact of flavored tobacco product sales restrictions, highlighting emerging evidence on their effectiveness as well as policy implementation challenges.

Bio: Sarah D. Mills, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research examines the public health impacts of tobacco control policies, with a focus on regulation of flavored tobacco products. She co-leads an FDA/NIDA-funded project within the UNC Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science that uses microsimulation modeling to assess the population-level impact of a national flavored cigar sales restriction. This work builds on a simulation model of tobacco use behavior developed during her FDA/NCI-funded Career Development Award to project the impact of a national menthol cigarette sales restriction. Her research has been published in high-impact journals including the American Journal of Public Health and Tobacco Control, and she contributed to two chapters of the most recent Surgeon General’s Report on tobacco use. Her work has also been featured in the US Food and Drug Administration’s proposed rule to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes as well as in the New York Times, Time Magazine and other news outlets.