The percentage of American cigarette smokers in 2017 hit 14%, its lowest point since the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) first started tracking smoking statistics in 1965. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) report this represents a 67% decline from 1965 and a 1.5% decline from 2016. The survey results appear in the November 9 issue of the CDC publication Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Despite the progress, 34.3 million adults in the US still smoked cigarettes in 2017 and 47.4 million people used some type of tobacco product. Cigarette smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death and disease in the US. An estimated 480,000 American adults die from cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke exposure every year.
"This all-time low in cigarette smoking among US adults is a tremendous public health accomplishment – and it demonstrates the importance of continued proven strategies to reduce smoking," said CDC director Robert Redfield, MD, in a statement.
He added that despite the progress, work is needed to further reduce tobacco use, especially among certain groups of Americans. Use of any tobacco product was highest among people with a General Education Development (GED) certificate (42.6%), those with a history of serious psychological distress (40.8%), and the uninsured (31%).
Some factors mentioned in the report that could have an effect on the findings include that people taking the survey had to remember their amount of tobacco use over time and that only 53% of those asked to participate in the survey actually did.
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Tobacco Product Use Among Adults--United States, 2017. Published November 9, 2018 in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. First author Teresa W. Wang, PhD, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Ga.
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