Jump to full article: MedPage Today, 2009-11-13
Intro: Action Points
* Explain to interested patients that for smokers, quitting the habit is the most effective way known to improve health.
* Explain that a large body of research has shown that secondhand smoke is unhealthy and is associated with increased rates of chronic bronchitis symptoms.
National rates of cigarette smoking showed little change in 2008 from a year earlier, the CDC reported, though states vary widely both in rates of current smoking and exposures of nonsmokers to secondhand smoke.
Some 20.6% of Americans were current smokers in 2008 (95% CI 19.9% to 21.4%), not significantly different from the 19.8% found in 2007 (95% CI 19.0% to 20.6%) according to the the government's ongoing National Health Interview Survey, detailed by Shanta R. Dube, PhD, and other CDC researchers in the Nov. 13 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
But analysis of a another data set in MMWR -- the 2008 results from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) -- revealed a twofold variation in rates among states. . . .
Utah had by far the lowest rate of current cigarette smoking, at 9.2%, followed by California (14.0%), New Jersey (14.8%) and Maryland (14.9%), according to Ann M. Malarcher, PhD, and CDC colleagues.
West Virginia led the other end of the list at 26.6%. Other states with current smoking rates of 25% or more included Indiana, Kentucky, and Missouri.
Jump to full article » |