Tobacco.org

• State's smoking rate still high  

Smoking by women is one of the gravest preventive health concerns in Kentucky. While numerous smoking cessation and public health programs have been initiated to address the problem, Kentucky women continue to smoke in numbers that lead the nation and they are not quitting or even trying to quit, according to health experts at the University of Kentucky.

The median state prevalence of current smoking was 22.4 percent, but Kentucky prevalence is 34.7 percent (the next highest was West Virginia at 34 percent), while the median percent of daily smokers who quit is 39.8 percent - in Kentucky, it's only 28.9 percent, according to data from the Center for the Advancement of Women's Health at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

Further, the median percent of daily smokers who made a quit attempt was 58 percent, but in Kentucky it was only 43.4 percent.

"So we are not quitting in Kentucky," said Dr. Leslie Crofford, the center's director. "We're not even trying to quit."

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