Limited Progress Preventing Smoking by Teenagers - 2004-06-22 at 07:31
The prevalence of regular cigarette smoking by teenagers is down from the late 1990s, but not enough to be meet hoped-for health goals, and “Prevention efforts must be sustained” to make sure even the limited progress continues, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today. The CDC analyzed data from the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey to determine changes in cigarette use by high school students from 1991 to 2003. Possible factors in the reduced numbers of students smoking regularly are steep rises in the price of cigarettes, increases in school-based efforts to prevent smoking, and exposure of young persons to mass-media anti-smoking campaigns funded by states and the American Legacy Foundation. Factors that may have slowed the decline in cigarette use, however, include massive tobacco industry advertising and promotion and reductions in the use of Master Settlement Agreement funds for tobacco prevention. The CDC also noted that there is a lot of cigarette smoking in current movies.The data in the survey included only students who are still in school; and rates of smoking are thought to be high among young school dropouts. The report, “Cigarette Use Among High School Students—United States, 1991-2003,” appeared in the June 18 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and is available online at www.cdc.gov/mmwr.
