The Center for Disease Control said one in five U.S. adults continues to smoke cigarettes, a percentage that hasn't budged since 2005, suggesting that more aggressive efforts are needed to reduce smoking-related diseases and deaths.
After a 40-year decline, the U.S. smoking rate has hovered around 20% since 2005, although states with aggressive tobacco control programs have seen their rates drop as low as 13%, Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Tuesday.
Some U.S. smoking rates stats are paradoxical.
"In some ways, this is a paradox," Frieden said at a news conference about a new CDC smoking report. "Tobacco control has strong bipartisan support. Even most smokers want to quit. In 2010, we know better than ever what works to reduce tobacco use."
"There has been no progress in reducing that number in five years," said Thomas Frieden, MD, director of CDC, in a conference call with reporters. Frieden also said shrewd marketing by tobacco companies and stagnation in anti-smoking efforts have combined to stall a 40-year decline in smoking prevalence that began in 1964. He said full implementation of his agency's recommendations for state-level programs to reduce smoking would help resume progress toward elimination of smoking, but these have been underfunded, not necessarily because of the recession.
Frieden lambasted tobacco companies for "sidestepping" policies aimed at discouraging tobacco use, especially among young people. "They insure that every cigarette they sell delivers nicotine quickly and efficiently to keep people addicted," he thundered. "The industry uses targeted price discounts ... to get kids to start smoking," said Frieden.
He also accused companies of targeting the youth market with flavored nicotine-laced lozenges "to get around the ban on flavored cigarettes," as well as employing "subtle and not-so-subtle ways" to suggest some tobacco products are less harmful than others.
Nearly 47 million adults smoke, he said. Smokers are more likely to be male, high school dropouts and living below the poverty level, according to the CDC. In 2005, smoking prevalence stood at 20.9% -- not significantly different from the 2009 figure or the rate for any year in between, according to the MMWR.
Data from the 2009 National Health Interview Survey and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) indicated that 20.6% of Americans 18 and older reported being current smokers, according to an early-release report in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
A separate MMWR report based on National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data found that some 88 million nonsmokers are exposed to secondhand smoke, as evidenced by serum levels of the nicotine metabolite cotinine. The prevalence of secondhand smoke exposure -- at around four in 10 nonsmokers -- has declined from 1999 to 2008, the study indicated, but it too appears to have hit a plateau.
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data from 2007 to 2008 showed cotinine (at least 0.05 ng/mL) in 40.1% of nonsmokers, not significantly different from the 39.1% seen in the previous biennium or the 41.7% found in 2001 to 2002. In 1999 to 2000 the prevalence of cotinine in nonsmokers was 52.5%. Both studies also found that certain populations are more likely to inhale tobacco smoke -- either by choice or through secondhand exposure.
Secondhand smoke exposure was greatest in children and teens, males, and non-Hispanic blacks. Hispanic and Asian women, people with higher levels of education, and older adults continued to meet the Healthy People 2010 target of ≤12% prevalence of smoking. While the CDC noted that smoking prevalence was lowest among Asian and Hispanic women, the current findings could not assess specific Asian and Hispanic subgroups.
Secondhand smoke continues to be a problem, the CDC says, and 54% of children 3 to 11 are exposed to it, most in the home. Virtually all children who live with smokers have detectable levels of toxic chemicals in their blood from exposure to secondhand smoke, the CDC found. Frieden said parents shouldn't smoke in their homes; better yet, they should quit. "Your smoking is harming your children, and the fact that you smoke makes it twice as likely that they will smoke."
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