Smoking, which was once a symbol of sophistication and glamour, has been getting de-emphasized in advertising in recent decades, with its health hazards further emphasized, and those things are what may have helped drive numbers down to record lows. Released on Friday, November 14, the report showed the smoking rate has declined to 16 percent in 2014 from nearly 21 percent in 2005.
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The greatest decline in smoking rates occurred in adults aged 18 to 24, but this is also the demographic that engages the most with e-cigarette smoking and hookah. Those under the USA government’s Medicaid program were far more likely to smoke than others, with a rate of 29.1 percent, same with those without insurance, with a rate of 27.9 percent. What isn’t common knowledge is that the addiction Americans have cost more than $300 billion annually, according to CDC Director Tom Frieden.
Another important finding was that the typical number of cigarettes smoked per day among daily smokers decreased from 16.7 in 2005 to 13.8 in 2014 – driven by declines in the proportion of daily smokers who smoked 20 or more cigarettes per day. Previous year exclusively recorded a one percent drop. Only 12.9% of U.S adults smoked cigarettes on a daily basis that had private health insurance. There is a goal is to reduce the cigarette smoking rate to 12 percent or lower in line with the Healthy People 2020 campaign, which is a 10-year agenda to help improve the country’s health.
Brian King, Ph.D., deputy director for research translation, CDC Office on Smoking and Health said, “These findings underscore the importance of ensuring that proven strategies to prevent and reduce tobacco use reach the entire population, particularly vulnerable groups”.
This could also indicate the possible correlation of poverty with the rate of smoking. The report highlights that quitting smoking has been more hard for several demographics, most notably the poor. The smoking rate among adults who live below the federal poverty level of $19,790 in annual income of family having three members was 26.3%.
It has also been found that smoking rate is especially quite high among those having a general education development certificate (GED) at 43%, and also among those as multiracial (27.9%). The ones recognized as lesbian, gay or indiscriminate were likewise having a high rate of smoking, 23.9% in 2014.
“The reduction in smoking prevalence over the last decade is a major victory for public health”, commented Dr. Jaimee L. Heffner, a Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center expert in tobacco cessation.
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The report came the same day federal authorities proposed a ban on smoking in public housing, which would affect more than 700,000 homes if implemented, according to TIME.
