New Report Says Decline in Cigarette Use Among High School Students Has Slowed

A new report released by the Centers for Disease Control said cigarette use among high school students began to decline in the late 1990s, but the rate of decline slowed during the past six years. Their Office on Smoking and Health, Division of Adolescent and School Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, analyzed data from 1991-2009 for three measures: ever smoked cigarettes, current cigarette use, and current frequent cigarette use. Research suggests that to increase the rate of decline in cigarette use among high school students, reductions in advertising, promotions, and commercial availability of tobacco products should be combined with full implementation of communitywide, comprehensive tobacco control programs.

Understanding the trends in the prevalence of cigarette smoking among youths enables policy makers to target prevention resources more effectively. Every two years, the CDC analyzes data from the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey to evaluate trends in cigarette use among high school students in the United States. This report updates a previous report and describes results of CDC's 2010 analysis of YRBS data from 1991-2009 for three measures: ever smoked cigarettes, current cigarette use, and current frequent cigarette use. For ever smoked cigarettes, the prevalence did not change from 1991 (70.1 percent) to 1999 (70.4 percent), declined to 58.4 percent in 2003, and then declined more gradually, to 46.3 percent in 2009. For current cigarette use, the prevalence increased from 27.5 percent in 1991 to 36.4 percent in 1997, declined to 21.9 percent in 2003, and then declined more gradually, to 19.5 percent in 2009. For current frequent cigarette use, the prevalence increased from 12.7 percent in 1991 to 16.8 percent in 1999, declined to 9.7 percent in 2003, and then declined more gradually, to 7.3 percent in 2009.

For current cigarette use, trend analyses were conducted by sex, race/ethnicity, and grade in school. Significant linear, quadratic, and cubic effects similar to the overall analysis were observed for current cigarette use among female students overall, white female students, black students overall, black male students, 9th-grade students, and 10th-grade students. Among male students overall, white students overall, white male students, Hispanic male students, and 11th-grade students, current cigarette use increased from 1991 to 1997, declined from 1997 to 2003, and then remained stable. Among Hispanic students overall and Hispanic female students, current cigarette use increased from 1991 to 1995, declined from 1995 to 2003, and then remained stable. Among 12th-grade students, current cigarette use increased from 1991 to 1999, declined from 1999 to 2003, and then remained stable. Among black female students, only linear and quadratic effects were observed, indicating that the prevalence of current cigarette use increased from 1991 to 1999 and then declined, with no slowing or leveling off.

For complete information about this report, and what is known on this topic, please visit http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5926a1.htm?s_cid=mm5926a1_e .