Virtually all American adults know that cigarettes pose a health
risk: According to combined Gallup data from 2002 to 2004*, 82% of
Americans feel smoking is "very harmful" to adults who smoke, while
another 15% say it is "somewhat harmful."
Those percentages are evidence that decades of private and
public education and awareness efforts have had some effect.
Nevertheless, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report
that tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of death in
the United States, accounting for about 440,000 deaths each year.
Aggregated Gallup data on smoking indicate that 24% of American
adults have smoked in the past week, a figure that has held fairly
steady for the last decade.
The majority of smokers are obviously well aware that the habit
is harmful to them -- but perceptions of how harmful it is
to tend to vary between smokers and nonsmokers. Eighty-eight
percent of those who haven't smoked in the past week feel smoking
is "very harmful," compared with just 62% of those who have.
Who's Hooked?
Still, the fact that three in five smokers say they realize
smoking is very harmful speaks to the power of nicotine addiction.
Who's most likely to be hooked? There isn't much difference
strictly by gender, but age certainly plays a factor. Men are as
likely as women to say they've smoked in the past week (26% vs.
23%), and Americans under age 50 are more likely than those over 50
to have done so (27% vs. 19%). The data suggest that older men who
smoke are more likely to smoke a pack or more daily than those in
other age and gender groups.
Bottom Line
Smoking costs more than $75 billion per year in medical expenses
and $80 billion per year in lost productivity. CDC's Healthy People
objective is geared toward reducing adult cigarette smoking from a
1998 baseline of 24% to a 2010 target of 12%. They have a long way
to go to reach that objective, thought almost all Americans have
gotten the message that smoking is dangerous. The implication is
that, moving forward, getting more people to quit may require
reallocating some of the resources spent on awareness of the risks
to developing effective strategies for helping smokers --
especially older males -- overcome what in many cases has proven an
insurmountable addiction.
*Results are based on telephone interviews with 3,016
national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted in July 2002, July
2003, and July 2004. For results based on this sample of national
adults, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2
percentage points.
For results based on the sample of 960 men and 1,050 women, the
maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage
points.
For results based on the sample of 555 men, aged 18 to 49 and
566 women, aged 18 to 49, the maximum margin of sampling error is
±4 percentage points.
For results based on the sample of 809 adults with a high school
education or less, the maximum margin of sampling error is
±4 percentage points. For results based on the sample of
1,341 adults with at least some college education, the maximum
margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.
For results based on the sample of 656 smokers, the maximum
margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.
For results based on the sample of 333 men who smoke and 323
women who smoke, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±6
percentage points.
For results based on the sample of 220 men, aged 18 to 49 who
smoke and 199 women, aged 18 to 49, the maximum margin of sampling
error is ±7 percentage points. For results based on the
sample of 111 men, aged 50+ who smoke and 124 women, aged 50+, the
maximum margin of sampling error is ±10 percentage
points.
