Current cigarette use among high school students nationwide began to decline in the late 1990s, but the rate of decline slowed during 2003–2009, according to CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). The report published today shows that since 2003, the rate of decline in current cigarette use slowed or leveled off for all of the racial/ethnic (white, Hispanic, and black) and gender subgroups except black female students, for which rates of current cigarette use showed no slowing or leveling off after 1999.
Because of this slower rate of decline, the United States has not met its national 2010 health objective of reducing cigarette use among high school students to 16 percent or less. The MMWR article examines data for 1991–2009 from CDC's national Youth Risk Behavior Survey to evaluate trends in cigarette use among U.S. high school students in grades 9–12.
"Although 4 of 5 don't smoke, it's discouraging to see that current smoking did not continue to decline more rapidly among youth," said CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. "Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in this country and 9 out of 10 adults started smoking in their teens or earlier. The slow progress since 2003 tells us that much more needs to be done to reduce youth smoking."
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