| Summary: | Fifty years have passed since publication of the landmark report of the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on smoking and health. This report highlights both the dramatic progress our nation has made reducing tobacco use and the continuing burden of disease and death caused by smoking. The prevalence of current cigarette smoking among adults has declined from 42% in 1965 to 18% in 2012. However, more than 42 million Americans still smoke. Tobacco has killed more than 20 million people prematurely since the first Surgeon General's report in 1964. The findings in this report show that the decline in the prevalence of smoking has slowed in recent years and that burden of smoking-attributable mortality is expected to remain at high and unacceptable levels for decades to come unless urgent action is taken. In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched the first-ever paid national tobacco education campaign --Tips From Former Smokers (Tips) -- to raise awareness of the harms to health caused by smoking, encourage smokers to quit, and encourage nonsmokers to protect themselves and their families from exposure to secondhand smoke. While we have made tremendous progress over the past 50 years, sustained and comprehensive efforts are needed to prevent more people from having to suffer the pain, disability, disfigurement, and death that smoking causes. Most Americans who have ever smoked have already quit, and most smokers who still smoke want to quit. If we continue to implement tobacco prevention and cessation strategies that have proven effective in reducing tobacco use, people throughout our country will live longer, healthier, more productive lives
|
|---|