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The percentage of high-school students who smoked at least one day within the past month remained largely unchanged from 2003 to 2007, in the range of 20% to 23% of students surveyed, following sharp declines in the previous half-decade, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Thursday.
The stalled progress comes as states have drastically cut funding for tobacco-prevention and -cessation programs since 2002, said Terry Pechacek, associate director for science at the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health. On average, state funding for tobacco-prevention and -cessation programs fell by 28% between 2002 and 2005, according to the American Legacy Foundation, a national organization created in 1999 out of a master tobacco-settlement agreement between the tobacco industry and 51 states and territories to develop antitobacco programs.
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The latest survey of high school smoking rates, released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), shows that while the nation has made remarkable progress in reducing youth smoking since 1997, rates of current smoking have been essentially stalled since 2003. This survey demonstrates that we know what works to reduce tobacco use and that elected officials at all levels, including Congress, must step up the fight against the nation's No. 1 killer by aggressively implementing proven solutions. Congress has an immediate opportunity to act by passing legislation to grant the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority over tobacco products, which, among other things, would crack down on tobacco marketing and sales to youth.
To examine changes in cigarette use among high school students in the United States during 1991--2007, CDC analyzed data from the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). This report summarizes the results of that analysis, which indicated that the prevalence of lifetime cigarette use was stable during 1991--1999 and then declined from 70.4% in 1999 to 50.3% in 2007. The prevalence of current cigarette use increased from 27.5% in 1991 to 36.4% in 1997, declined to 21.9% in 2003, and remained stable from 2003 to 2007. The prevalence of current frequent cigarette use increased from 12.7% in 1991 to 16.8% in 1999 and then declined to 8.1% in 2007. To resume the declines observed in current cigarette use during 1997--2003 and achieve the 2010 objective, communitywide comprehensive tobacco-control programs that use coordinated evidence-based strategies should be implemented and revitalized. . . .
The findings in this report show that current cigarette use among high school students declined from 1997 to 2003, but rates remained stable from 2003 to 2007. This trend is consistent with 30-day cigarette use trends reported from the Monitoring the Future survey (an ongoing national study of the behaviors, attitudes, and values of 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students), which also show declines starting in the late 1990s and stable rates more recently (3).
The sharp increase in cigarette use during the early to mid-1990s observed in this and other surveys might have resulted from expanded tobacco company promotional efforts, including discounted prices on cigarette brands most often smoked by adolescents, product placement in movies, development of nontobacco product lines with company symbols (e.g., hats and t-shirts), and sponsorship of music concerts and other youth-focused events
An article in this week's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released today by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows, alarmingly, that the decline in smoking rates among high school students seen from 1997 to 2003 continues to stagnate. These results are an ominous sign as an overwhelming majority of smokers begin their deadly addiction during this critical stage of development in their lives.
"Ninety percent of smokers start before their 21st birthday, and tragically up to one-half of them will eventually die from a tobacco-related disease," said Bernadette A. Toomey, President and CEO of the American Lung Association. "This is a clear warning sign that our leaders must summon the political will to implement lifesaving policies we know will work to end our nation's tobacco epidemic."
Efforts to reduce teen smoking have stalled in the past five years as states lose funding for anti-tobacco efforts and as companies use new strategies to recruit customers, U.S. health officials said on Thursday.
While fewer youths are trying cigarettes for the first time, overall smoking rates stayed stable at just under 22 percent for students aged 14 to 18 between 2003 and 2007, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
Many fewer students have ever tried a cigarette -- just 50 percent, down from 70 percent in 1999. But CDC officials were not celebrating this number.
"We had seen this great progress from 1999 to 2003 and we were turning around this epidemic of increase in the 1990s that had everybody concerned," Terry Pechacek of CDC's Office on Smoking and Health said in a telephone interview.
"Unfortunately, that progress has not been maintained."
The number of states with laws prohibiting smoking in private sector worksites, restaurants, and/or bars in the United States tripled and the number with no such laws was halved between 2005 and 2007, according to a report in this week′s issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The study, which compared the status of state smoking restrictions, focused on private sector worksites, restaurants, and bars where adult nonsmokers were most likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke -- especially employees in restaurants and bars, who are at risk of exposure to high concentrations of secondhand smoke. The report updates a study that used data compiled from CDC′s State Tobacco Activities Tracking and Evaluation System database and was released in July 2005.
In 1999, the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) was initiated by WHO, CDC, and the Canadian Public Health Association to monitor tobacco use, attitudes about tobacco use, and exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) among students aged 13--15 years. Since 1999, the survey has been completed by approximately 2 million students in 151 countries (3). A key goal of GYTS is for countries to repeat the survey every 4 years. This report summarizes results from GYTS conducted in Sri Lanka in 1999, 2003, and 2007. The findings indicated that during 1999--2007, the percentage of students aged 13--15 years who reported current cigarette smoking decreased, from 4.0% in 1999 to 1.2% in 2007. During this period, the percentage of never smokers in this age group likely to initiate smoking also decreased, from 5.1% in 1999 to 3.7% in 2007. Future declines in tobacco use in Sri Lanka will be enhanced through development and implementation of new tobacco-control measures and strengthening of existing measures that encourage smokers to quit, eliminate exposure to SHS, and encourage persons not to initiate tobacco use.
This report summarizes the changes in state smoking restrictions for private-sector worksites, restaurants, and bars that occurred from 2004 to 2007. The findings indicated a substantial increase in the number and restrictiveness of state laws regulating smoking in these three settings, providing nonsmokers with increased protection from the health risks posed by SHS. If current trends continue, achieving the national health objective by 2010 might be possible.
This report focuses on smoking restrictions in indoor areas in private-sector worksites, restaurants, and bars. These three settings were selected because worksites are a major source of SHS exposure for nonsmokers and because workers in restaurants and bars are especially likely to be exposed to SHS, often at high concentrations (1). The smoking restrictions in effect in each of the 50 states and DC* as of December 31, 2004, and December 31, 2007, were categorized into one of four levels
A new study published today by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention underscores the powerful momentum across the country to pass strong smoke-free workplace laws that protect all workers and the public from the serious health hazards of secondhand smoke. This study should spur every state and community to pass smoke-free laws that protect all workers from this entirely preventable health hazard, including restaurant, bar and casino workers who are especially at risk of exposure to high concentrations of secondhand smoke. Everyone has the right to breathe clean air, and no one should have to put their health at risk in order to earn a living or enjoy a night out.
Michigan and Pennsylvania have the most immediate opportunities to join the growing list of smoke-free states and communities. . . .
Since the study period, several more states have enacted smoke-free laws that include restaurants and bars. Today, 24 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have enacted such laws.
The American Legacy Foundation, a national public health foundation dedicated to tobacco use prevention and cessation, has awarded more than $1.2 million in grants to 11 organizations as a part of a new grants initiative: the truth®or Consequences Youth Tobacco Prevention Grants Program. This new program, supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will support community-based tobacco-use-prevention efforts in 18 states across the country.
The truth® or Consequences grants will engage rural and smaller communities in tobacco use prevention efforts, and supplement the truth® youth smoking prevention media campaign in underserved areas, by developing local tobacco use prevention projects relevant to 12- to 17-year-old youth. These youth-led initiatives are designed to be shared at a national level in order to create the greatest possible impact on the issue of tobacco and smoking. The program also gives each grantee the flexibility to choose and customize different tobacco use prevention strategies and methods, so long as young people remain the decision makers and the project is focused on making a lasting community change.
People who slept less than six hours a night were more likely than well-rested people to smoke, drink heavily and avoid exercise, a U.S. government study found.
About 31 percent of adults who got that little sleep smoked cigarettes, compared with 18 percent who slept seven to eight hours, according to the survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency couldn't tell whether the unhealthy habits caused a sleep deficit or was the result.
About 50 million to 70 million people in the U.S. suffer from chronic sleep loss and sleep disorders, which studies by the CDC have associated with obesity and depression.
Figure 4 illustrates a sharp age difference in the disparities for smoking prevalence. Among adults aged 18-44 years, more than 40% of those who were deaf or had a lot of trouble hearing currently smoked cigarettes compared with 24% of those with good hearing. Disparities in smoking prevalence persisted among middle aged adults but were not found for adults aged 65 years and over, an age group for which hearing loss is more prevalent and smoking rates are generally low.
Conclusions
The findings in this report, based on a survey of a representative sample of U.S. adults, offer a national perspective on the association between sleep practices and other health-related behaviors in the U.S. adult population. The findings presented here suggest that U.S. adults who usually slept less than 6 hours were more likely than adults who slept 7 to 8 hours to engage in certain health risk behaviors (i.e., cigarette smoking, having five or more drinks in a day, engaging in no leisure-time physical activity, and being obese). In many cases, adults who usually slept 9 hours or more were also at increased risk of engaging in these unhealthy behaviors. The associations between sleep and other behaviors are complex, and the directions of causality cannot be determined with the cross-sectional data used in this analysis. Additional analyses are needed to identify the causal directions of these relationships, as well as to identify factors, such as poverty or educational attainment, that may influence sleep and its associated factors. Despite these limitations, the findings presented here provide important information about the potential relevance of discussing health risk behaviors such as smoking, alcohol use, physical inactivity, and obesity with patients who seek medical advice for sleep concerns.
People who sleep fewer than six hours a night -- or more than nine -- are more likely to be obese, according to a new government study that is one of the largest to show a link between irregular sleep and big bellies.
The study also linked light sleepers to higher smoking rates, less physical activity and more alcohol use. . . .
Such surveys can't prove cause-effect relationships, so -- for example -- it's not clear if smoking causes sleeplessness or if sleeplessness prompts smoking, said Charlotte Schoenborn, the study's lead author.
It also did not account for the influence of other factors, such as depression, which can contribute to heavy eating, smoking, sleeplessness and other problems.
Smoking was highest for people who got under six hours of sleep, with 31 percent saying they were current smokers. Those who got nine or more hours also were big puffers, with 26 percent smoking.
The overall U.S. smoking rate is about 21 percent. For those in the study who sleep seven to eight hours, the rate was lower, at 18 percent.
A conference beginning today in Oklahoma City focuses on cutting the smoking rate among American Indians.
Representatives from American Indian tribes from across the country will gather with experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other organizations for the 3-day conference.