CDC MMWR -- Embargoed Until Noon (EDT) Today, Thursday, August 26, 2010

The following information is EMBARGOED until Noon (EDT) today, Thursday, August 26, 2010.

Below please find an embargoed copy of the August 27th, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report containing the following tobacco-related article: Tobacco Use Among Middle and High School Students—United States, 2000–2009

To further decrease tobacco use and susceptibility to use among youth, restrictions on advertising, promotion, and availability of tobacco products to youth should be combined with broader tobacco-control strategies, such as tobacco-free policies and tobacco product price increases. Tobacco use continues to be the single leading preventable cause of death and disease in the United States, and more than 80% of established adult smokers begin before the age of 18. To monitor trends in tobacco use among middle and high school students, CDC analyzed data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS). The findings in this report indicate that from 2000 to 2009, the prevalence of current tobacco and cigarette use and experimentation with smoking cigarettes has declined for middle school and high schools students; however, for most tobacco use measures, no significant declines were noted from 2006–2009. This lack of significant change indicates that the current rate of decline in tobacco use is relatively slow. The report also indicates that overall, the percentage of middle and high school students who have never tried cigarettes but are open to trying (i.e., "susceptibility”) has not changed.

Documents:
Copy of the August 27th MMWR issue (see page 1063)

MMWR Highlights

The online version of the report will be available after noon (EDT) on the CDC web site at http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr.

Source: e-mail communication from Willam Coppage with CDC/Office on Smoking and Health.