New research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that less Americans than ever – just 15.2% of them – smoke cigarettes, UPI reports.
DRAMATIC DROP OVER DECADES
The statistic, which was found by researchers for the CDC’s National Health Interview Survey, is consistent with the trend of decline from the past few years. In recent decades, smoking in the United States has dramatically decreased in popularity: in 1965, 42 percent of Americans smoked; in 2013, 18 percent; and in 2014, 17 percent. Since 2009, the number has been decreasing after stagnating for a few years in the mid-2000s.
ANTI-SMOKING ACTIVISTS ARE PLEASED
Anti-tobacco activists are pleased with the unprecedented low in American smokers, and cite it as an indication of an effective anti-smoking strategy. The American Lung Association’s director of national policy, Thomas Carr, told HealthDay that it shows that anti-smoking organizations should do “more of the same.”
Carr has also called for more anti-smoking laws. “It could have an impact on the smoking rate, and definitely would protect more people from secondhand smoke,” he said.
WHY LESS SMOKE THAN EVER
Anti-smoking laws, marketing campaigns and taxes are thought to be the cause behind the new low in American smokers.
Specifically, graphic television commercials with grotesque pictures of cancerous lungs aimed at smokers were cited as one of the reasons by the Patricia Falon, the Center for Tobacco Control at North Shore-LIJ Health System’s director in an interview with HealthDay.
“Smokers find them so painful to watch that they keep changing the channel, but these ads are running everywhere,” said the director.
GENDER AND RACE OF SMOKERS
Researchers found that men (17 percent) were more likely to smoke than women (13 percent), and young people were more likely than old people. Statistics differed among races, too: 10 percent of Hispanics, 18 percent of blacks and 10 percent of whites are smokers.
The director of the American Cancer Society’s Tobacco Control Center, Cliff Douglas, told HealthDay that the differences among demographics “highlight the importance of something that’s crucial to us — addressing disparities in the tobacco epidemic.”
