Cigarette smoking — United States, 2006-2008 and 2009-2010

Abstract

Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States, resulting in approximately 443,000 deaths and $193 billion in direct health-care expenditures and productivity losses each year (1). Declines in smoking prevalence would significantly impact the health-care and economic costs of smoking. Efforts to accelerate the decline in cigarette smoking include reducing cigarette smoking disparities among specific population groups. Findings from the previous report on cigarette use in the first CDC Health Disparities and Inequalities Report (CHDIR) indicated that progress has been achieved in reducing disparities in cigarette smoking among certain racial/ethnic groups (2). However, little progress has been made in reducing disparities in cigarette smoking among persons of low socioeconomic status (SES) and low educational attainment.

This report on cigarette smoking and the analysis and discussion that follows is part of the second CHDIR. The 2011 CHDIR (3) was the first CDC report to take a broad view of disparities across a wide range of diseases, behavioral risk factors, environmental exposures, social determinants, and health-care access. The topic presented in this report is based on criteria that are described in the 2013 CHDIR Introduction (4). The report that follows provides more current information to what was presented in the 2011 CHDIR (2). The purposes of this report are to discuss and raise awareness of differences in the smoking prevalence of current smokers and to prompt actions to reduce disparities.