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Jennifer Ellen French
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Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
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ATLANTA — The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded Georgia State economist Michael Pesko $2.65 million in renewal funding for a five-year study to evaluate the effects of e-cigarette policies on youth tobacco use.
The award follows Pesko’s four-year $1.4 million NIH-funded study examining the effects of early attempts to regulate e-cigarettes.
“We’re looking at the newer policies in this renewal application – flavor bans, tobacco 21 laws and e-cigarette sales taxes – and will analyze these using some new data sources and methods compared to the earlier grant,” said Pesko, an associate professor in Georgia State’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. “Our work will help advance the NIH’s mission by developing fundamental knowledge that will ensure the nation's capability to prevent diseases caused by tobacco use.”
Joining Pesko as principal investigators are Catherine Maclean, an associate professor at George Mason University and Joseph Sabia, a professor at San Diego State. They will collaborate with researchers at the Truth Initiative, a nonprofit tobacco control organization.
Pesko and his colleagues have published approximately 20 different papers detailing findings from his first e-cigarette NIH-funded study, with some papers still circulating through the publishing process. Links to this work is available at his website, see e-cigarette research summary.
Featured Researcher
Michael Pesko
Associate Professor
Department of Economics
Michael Pesko is a health economist and a Research Fellow with the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA). He uses retrospectively collected data and quasi-experimental methods to evaluate health policy changes and is particularly interested in policy changes affecting the use of e-cigarettes (see e-cigarette research summary).
Pesko has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers in top health economics, health policy and labor economics journals. His research has been supported by externally generated funds exceeding $4.5 million since 2016, including from the National Institutes of Health and American Cancer Society.