Tobacco Use: Monitoring Individual Tobacco Use

Fundamentally, tobacco use is a personal behavior–individuals use tobacco and they choose to quit. Through surveys of US households, we are able to monitor a number of issues relating to individual tobacco use behavior, such as prevalence of use, how often and how much people use tobacco, age of initiation, and quitting history. Here's some of what we've learned:

• The prevalence of cigarette smoking, though improving, is still well above the Healthy People 2010 target of 12 percent of the adult population. Since 1992, the prevalence has fallen slightly, from 23.8 to 20.5 percent for persons 18 and older, according to the Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey. In 2001-02, current smoking was least prevalent among women, persons in the West, those at least 65 years old, and Hispanic respondents.
• In 2001-02, White respondents were the least likely to report smoking cessation activity, but the most likely to report successfully quitting for at least three months. Those with at least 16 years of education were most likely to report any smoking cessation activity or successfully quitting, while those with less than 12 years of education were least likely to report any smoking cessation activity or successfully quitting.