Cigarette Use Among High School Students — United States, 1991–2007
Source: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report

The findings in this report show that current cigarette use among high school students declined from 1997 to 2003, but rates remained stable from 2003 to 2007. This trend is consistent with 30-day cigarette use trends reported from the Monitoring the Future survey (an ongoing national study of the behaviors, attitudes, and values of 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students), which also show declines starting in the late 1990s and stable rates more recently.

The sharp increase in cigarette use during the early to mid-1990s observed in this and other surveys might have resulted from expanded tobacco company promotional efforts, including discounted prices on cigarette brands most often smoked by adolescents, product placement in movies, development of nontobacco product lines with company symbols (e.g., hats and t-shirts), and sponsorship of music concerts and other youth-focused events (4). Evidence suggests that exposure to pro-tobacco marketing and depictions of tobacco use in films and videos and on television more than doubles the odds of adolescents initiating tobacco use (5). Communitywide programs to counteract pro-tobacco marketing and resume the declines in youth tobacco use observed during 1997–2003 should include combinations of counter-advertising mass media campaigns; comprehensive school-based tobacco-use prevention policies and programs; community interventions that reduce tobacco advertising, promotions, and commercial availability of tobacco products; and higher prices for tobacco products through increases in unit prices and excise taxes.

The differences in current cigarette use among racial/ethnic subgroups suggest that lower rates of current cigarette use among high school students are achievable. The data in this analysis show that current cigarette use remained stable among white and Hispanic students overall from 2003 to 2007, but among black students overall, current cigarette use continued to decline. This decline can be attributed largely to declines among black female students. Whereas rates among black male students remained stable from 2001 to 2007, black female students showed a continued decline in current cigarette use from 1999 to 2007. In 2007, black female students had the lowest rate of current cigarette use among all sex and racial/ethnic subgroups.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 11:23 pm and is filed under K-12, Tobacco and smoking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.