Prevalence of Cigarette Use Among 14 Racial/ethnic Populations--United States, 1999-2001

The 1998 Surgeon General's report, Tobacco Use Among U.S. Racial/Ethnic Minority Groups, addressed diverse tobacco-control needs of the four primary U.S. racial/ethnic minority populations: non-Hispanic blacks, American Indians/Alaska Natives (AI/ANs), Asians/Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics. However, data on these populations do not describe differences in tobacco-use prevalence among subsets of these populations. To assess the prevalence of cigarette smoking among persons aged > or =12 years among 14 racial/ethnic populations in the United States, CDC analyzed self-reported data collected during 1999-2001 from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) (formerly the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse). This report summarizes the results of that analysis, which indicated that the prevalence of cigarette smoking among adults aged > or =18 years ranged from 40.4% for AI/ANs to 12.3% for the Chinese population, and the prevalence among youths aged 12-17 years ranged from 27.9% for AI/ANs to 5.2% for the Japanese population. Implementing tobacco-control programs that include culturally appropriate interventions can help reduce tobacco use among racial/ethnic populations.