ATLANTA, May 16 (UPI) -- Teen smoking rates have been declining since 1997, constituting a reverse from the increase in teen smoking seen in the early 1990s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed in a new report Thursday.
This could "contribute to potentially millions of deaths averted," Terry Pechacek, associate director for science with CDC's office of smoking and health, told United Press International.
CDC was very concerned about the increasing rates seen in the first half of the 1990s because 6.4 million American youths would die prematurely due to a tobacco related disease if the trend continued, Pechacek said.
"If we can cut (current teen smoking) rates in half, we could potentially reduce that 6.4 million by half," he said.
CDC is hopeful the downward trend will continue because it would put the United States on course to "reach its 2010 health objective of reducing teen smoking rates down to 16 percent," Pechacek said at a teleconference announcing the report.
Researchers from the centers analyzed data from a national survey of 11,000 to 16,000 high school students conducted every two years over the past decade. They found about 28 percent of U.S. high school students reported being current smokers in 2001 -- defined as having smoked at least one day in the past 30 days -- compared with 36 percent in 1997.
The number of frequent smokers -- defined as those who had smoked 20 or more days out of the past 30 -- also declined, dropping to 14 percent in 2001 from 17 percent in 1999.
African-American teens are less likely to smoke than white and Hispanic teens, the report showed. The reasons for this are unclear, but may include cultural differences in attitude toward tobacco, Pechacek said.
The report also found fewer and fewer teens are trying smoking. In 1999, 70 percent of high school students reported having tried cigarettes during their lives. In 2001, the figure had dropped to about 64 percent.
The reasons for the decline "include a 70 percent increase in the retail price of cigarettes between December 1997 and May 2001, increases in school-based efforts to prevent tobacco use, and increases in youth exposure to both state and national mass media smoking prevention campaigns," CDC officials wrote in the report.
Judith Brook, professor of preventive and community medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, who has studied smoking in youth, told UPI she believes teen smoking rates "will continue to decline. The question is: 'How rapidly?'"
Brook noted one of the most important reasons for the decline in smoking rates is the increase in price. "I think it will be very helpful to keep raising (the) price," she said.
This helps reduce the rate because "the kids are finding that they don't want to spend that kind of money," Brook said.
Cathy Backinger, program director with the tobacco control research branch at the National Cancer Institute, which funds research to determine what types of anti-smoking strategies are effective, told UPI studies have shown "increasing the price of cigarettes by 10 percent decreases smoking by 5 percent."
The price of cigarettes can continue to be increased at least until 2010, Pechacek told UPI, because the United States has "a national health objective to increase the national excise tax to two dollars by 2010." The current tax is 84 cents.
In addition, several states have increased their excise tax and other states are considering it, Pechacek said, pointing out that a recent report found that the average retail price of a pack of cigarettes continues to increase.
Another factor in the smoking decline is that "there's been an increase in adolescent's perception that smoking is problematic and that it has a number or risks in terms of health," Brook said.
"Continued reduction ... will require us to maximize our efforts at state, local and fed levels," Pechacek said. In addition to increasing cigarette price, these efforts should include "counter-marketing and limiting the exposure of youth to advertising," as well as school-based programs focused on prevention.
"We need to maintain (the countermarketing campaigns) to offset the large multimillion dollar advertising campaigns of the tobacco industry," Pechacek said.
Backinger noted The American Legacy Foundation, created as part of the master settlement with the tobacco industry, has collected data showing their anti-smoking "Truth" commercials, which are targeted at youth, are effective.
One reason for the success of the campaign is the foundation has spent more money on advertising than the youth-market-oriented clothing retailer, The Gap, she said.
(Reported by UPI Medical and Health Correspondent Steve Mitchell in Washington)
