Smoking Cessation Rates Vary
Most smokers
want to quit but a new analysis of more than 32,300 smokers by the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta say success rates vary dramatically.
In 2000, the
public health agency says, 70 percent of adult smokers in the United States
wanted to quit smoking and 41 percent had stopped, at least for a day.
The CDC finds
among people who had smoked at some point in their lifetime, the percentage
of those who had quit was low among some populations.
For racial and ethnic
groups, it was highest for whites at 51 percent and lowest for non-Hispanic
blacks at 37.3 percent.
Nearly half
of smokers above the poverty line had quit but barely a third living in
poverty had been able to stop smoking. The report says a lack of access
to proven treatments may be one reason the rates are lower for this group.
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Copyright 2002 by United
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