On the occasion of World No Tobacco Day 2026, CoEHAR will play a leading role at the LXII Scientific Meeting of the Italian Society of Economics, Demography and Statistics (SIEDS) taking place at the University of Catania from May 27 to 29, 2026, with a dedicated international session focused on the future of tobacco harm reduction within the broader One Health framework.
The conference, organized by prof. Venera Tomaselli (Associate Professor of Social statistics and CoEHAR member) together with a local organizing committee, will be held at the Department of Economics and Business, and will bring together experts from health sciences, economics, demography, environmental sciences, and public policy to discuss integrated approaches to complex global challenges. This year’s edition is dedicated to the theme: “Analysis of Socio-Economic, Environmental and Health Systems: The Integrated One Health Approach”.
Within this context, CoEHAR and LIAF (Italian Antismoking League) will organize the session “A One Health Approach to Tobacco Harm Reduction: Linking Clinical, Environmental, and Socio-Economic Systems for Population-Level Impact” scheduled for May 29 at 11:30 AM.
Moderated by Prof. Giovanni Li Volti (CoEHAR Director), the CoEHAR session will feature contributions from internationally recognized experts in the field: Prof. Riccardo Polosa (CoEHAR Founder), Prof. Donald Kenkel (Cornell University, USA) and Dr. Yusuff Adebayo Adebisi (University of Glasgow, UK).
The event will explore how tobacco harm reduction can be integrated into a broader public health vision linking clinical medicine, environmental sustainability, healthcare systems, economic impact, and social wellbeing.
This multidisciplinary perspective reflects the growing international recognition that smoking-related diseases cannot be addressed solely through traditional healthcare approaches, but require coordinated, evidence-based strategies capable of generating measurable population-level impact.
“As researchers, we can no longer look at smoking-related harm through a single lens,” said Prof. Giovanni Li Volti. “The One Health framework allows us to connect biomedical research with environmental, social, and economic determinants of health, generating a more comprehensive and sustainable vision for prevention strategies.”
“Addressing smoking today requires going beyond the traditional clinical perspective,” said Prof. Riccardo Polosa. “Tobacco harm reduction should be evaluated within a broader public health framework that also considers social, economic, and environmental consequences. Reducing the burden of smoking-related disease requires pragmatic, evidence-based strategies capable of generating measurable benefits not only for individual smokers, but for healthcare systems and society as a whole.”
The participation of experts from clinical medicine, health economics, and global health highlights CoEHAR’s ongoing commitment to promoting international scientific dialogue on prevention, innovation, and tobacco harm reduction.
The session will also be accredited as an Elective Educational Activity (ADE) for medical students, of the University of Catania, offering students an important opportunity to engage with emerging topics in public health, prevention, and harm reduction science.
Download the full conference agenda:
