With fears of the unchecked spread of swine flu sweeping the nation, a recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health may give some insight into tackling the number one cause of preventable death in the U.S.—smoking.

Majid Ezzati, an associate professor at the School of Public Health and one of the primary authors of the study—which concluded that smoking causes more premature deaths than other risk factors like high blood pressure or being overweight—said he was surprised by the “magnitude” of the problem.

“Smoking effects account for about 1 in 5 deaths in Americans who are over 30 years of age,” he said.

Ezzati attributed potential solutions to the problem just as much to policy-making as to individual actions.

“Individuals don’t just randomly smoke or stop smoking. They do it because things happen around them, and those things could be higher prices, higher taxes.” Ezzati said. “There could be less access to tobacco because it is regulated...The public health system’s role is to create the trigger for individual action.”

Though Ezzati emphasized the need for changes at the macro level—like regulating access to tobacco, advertising, or information on packaging—one student smoker said there is a social aspect to smoking that might not be affected by such changes.

“Along with the actual chemical addiction of nicotine, there’s also a psychological and social addiction,” said the student, who said she wished to remain anonymous so she wouldn’t be identified as a smoker. “No matter how much you deny it, there is something comforting about smoking, whether it is the physical act of going out and smoking or commiserating with your friends.”

But Christopher T. Chen ’10, the co-chair of the Institute of Politics tobacco control policy group, said that policy change could still be an important deterrent to smoking.

“Anyone would tell you that smoking in particular is very much predicated on the legitimacy of it within a social setting,” Chen said. “So, creating systems that suggest or otherwise discourage smoking or decrease its legitimacy is absolutely essential.”