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Infographic – U.S. Smoking Rate Hits New Low

Chart: smoking in the U.S.

Share of Americans who smoked a cigarette in the previous week. Click on image for full-size view. (Statista)

28 July 2018. News about research on cancer is perhaps the single most covered medical condition on Science & Enterprise. While many new technologies and therapies are discovered to detect and treat various types of cancer, changes in lifestyle can help hold off a cancer diagnosis, beginning with a stop to smoking. And not only cancer, but smoking cessation can also reduce heart disease and respiratory diseases such as COPD.

That message is sinking in, according to new data from the Gallup organization, this weekend’s infographic. These data, displayed in a chart published yesterday by our friends at Statista, show fewer than 1 in 6 Americans, or 16 percent, smoked a cigarette in the past week. In 1954, according to Gallup, nearly half (45%) were lighting up in the previous week.

The reduction in cigarette smoking is particularly evident among younger people. In 2000, about 1 in 3 (34%) of people age 18 to 29 smoked a cigarette in the previous week. By 2018 that rate has been cut by more than half, to 15 percent.

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