Casual Smoking on the Rise in Missouri, CDC Finds

For Immediate Release:
April 18, 2003

CONTACT:
Jim McDonald,
Public Information Coordinator
Bureau of Health Promotion
(573) 522-2807

Casual Smoking on the Rise in Missouri, CDC Finds

New research by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that Missouri is one of seven states experiencing a significant rise in casual smoking. The percentage of Missouri adults who report having smoked "some days" has risen steadily each year from 13.9 percent in 1997 to 22.5 percent in 2001.

"This could indicate that more people are taking an intermediate step of reducing smoking without quitting completely," said Janet Wilson, Chief of the Missouri Department of Health's Bureau of Health Promotion. "Many regular smokers who only cut down instead of quitting completely, simply become more efficient smokers, taking deeper, or more, puffs of their cigarettes," Wilson said. "Of course this means their risk of disease remains high."

Wilson said CDC research has found that smokers can cut the number of cigarettes they smoke each day by as much as half and still not decrease their risk of death from tobacco-related diseases, which remains the same as someone smoking 15 or more cigarettes per day.
Also in this study a few states were shown to have a significant, steady decrease in current smoking rates among adults over the past several years-Missouri is not one of these states. According to officials with CDC, the factors that might have contributed to reductions in current rates of smoking in some states include increased retail prices of cigarettes and smoking bans in public places.

"It is encouraging to see that public policy is making a difference in people's lives," Wilson said. "There is very good evidence that these kinds of policies would also work here in Missouri."

In the CDC study, Missouri was one of the 41 states where the adult rate of smoking remained static for the study period from 1996 to 2001. The Missouri rate was 25.9 percent. For the study, CDC used a random-digit, dialed telephone survey of the non-institutionalized U.S. population of adults greater than 18 years of age. To determine current cigarette smoking, respondents were asked, "Have you smoked at least 100 cigarettes in your entire life?" and "Do you now smoke cigarettes every day, some days, or not at all?"

Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, and is responsible for approximately 440,000 deaths each year.

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