The Stagnant Smoking Rate

Smoking is still the leading cause of preventable deaths in the US through negative health consequences such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases. It is correlated with lower education attainment as well as gender (male). This CDC report presents the results of the 2009 National Health Interview Survey and the 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System: 20.6% of US adults (18 and older) were active smokers in 2009 --only down 0.3% from 20.9% in 2005. However, certain subgroups such as Hispanic and Asian women and older adults continue to meet the Healthy People 2010 target of ≤12% prevalence of smoking possibly due to education and differences remain among regions such as in California, Maine, New York, and Washington who have seen high reductions. This finding of a plateau in smoking rates may be impacted by the health reform law which has provisions to expand evidence based smoking cessation services and treatments. Experts are anticipating how cessation interventions are likely to assist in increasing use of such services, reducing the number of new as well as current smokers and thus in reducing tobacco related chronic conditions and deaths.