19 June 2018•Update: 20 June 2018
By Barry Eitel
SAN FRANCISCO
Researchers announced Tuesday the amount of adults smoking cigarettes in the U.S. has reached its lowest point since the first statistics were released in 1965.
Only 13.9 percent of American adults smoked cigarettes in 2017, down from 16 percent in 2016 and 20.8 percent in 2006.
The research was collected by scientists at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In the mid-1960s, about 42 percent of adults smoked cigarettes.
Still, the statistics show that more than 30 million Americans continue to smoke. It appears that there is some variation from place to place in terms of the number of smokers.
In rural areas, more than 21 percent of adults smoke compared to about 11 percent of those living in urban areas.
“It shows that smoking is becoming more concentrated in places where access to smoking cessation help is very limited,” researcher Matthew Carpenter at the Medical University of South Carolina, who was not involved in the study, said in a statement.
The CDC statistics are early estimates and are expected to be confirmed later in the year. Harold P. Wimmer, the CEO of the American Lung Association, said that the initial estimates appear very promising.
"Credit for this public health victory should go toward public policies proven to prevent and reduce tobacco use, including increased tobacco taxes, well-funded tobacco prevention and quit-smoking programs, hard hitting media campaigns like CDC's Tips From Former Smokers campaign and comprehensive smokefree workplace laws,” Wimmer said in a statement. “The American Lung Association has long advocated for these important public policies.”
The amount of teenagers smoking in 2017 was also at an all-time low of 9 percent, the CDC said.
The CDC collected the information by releasing a survey. The agency said that 27,000 adults were interviewed in 2017.
