Who smokes in the United States?
Around 14 percent of adults in the United States smoke cigarettes. Smoking is generally more common among men than women, but rates for both sexes have decreased over the past couple decades. As of 2016-2018, around 16.5 percent of men were current cigarette smokers, compared to 12.7 percent of women. Concerning race and ethnicity, smoking is most common among non-Hispanic American Indians/Alaska Natives, and least common among Hispanics and non-Hispanic Asians with just eight percent of these two groups considered current smokers. The states with the highest smoking rates are West Virginia, Kentucky, and Arkansas, while California and Utah have the lowest rates in the United States.Smoking among adolescents
The decline in smoking over the past few decades is even more pronounced among younger people. In 1991, the lifetime prevalence of cigarette smoking among students in grades 8, 10, and 12 was almost 54 percent, but in 2021 just 11 percent reported they had smoked cigarettes at some point in their life. Furthermore, only around two percent of high school students in the United States report smoking cigarettes in the past 30 days. However, electronic cigarettes are now by far the most used tobacco product among high school students with 11 percent of students using them in the past month as of 2021. Interestingly, in contrast to adults, cigarette smoking is almost equally prevalent among boys and girls, but electronic cigarette use is more common among girls.The health risks of smoking
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. Smoking harms almost every organ in the body and increases the risk of many different types of cancer. For example, people who smoke are four times more likely to develop coronary heart disease and stroke, and 13 percent more likely to die from chronic obstructive lung diseases. Furthermore, men who smoke are around 25 percent more likely to develop lung cancer than men who do not smoke while women who smoke are almost 26 percent more likely to develop lung cancer than their nonsmoking counterparts. In fact, around 81 percent of all lung, bronchus, and trachea cancer deaths among adults 30 years and older can be attributed to cigarette smoking. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States with lung cancer accounting for the highest number of cancer-related deaths. It was estimated that in 2022 there would be a total of around 236,740 new lung cancer cases in the United States as well as 130,180 deaths.
