Demographic Characteristics of Adult Cigarette Smokers—United States, 2006

To identify populations disproportionately affected by tobacco use, scientists usually determine smoking prevalence among various demographic groups; however, these data are sometimes misinterpreted as meaning that these groups comprise the largest proportion of smokers. To determine the distribution of demographic characteristics among smokers in the United States (U.S.), we used data from the 2006 National Health Interview Survey, an annual household survey of the U.S. civilian, noninstitutionalized population aged ≥18 years (n=24,275) to estimate the weighted proportions of current smokers (smoked ≥100 cigarettes in their lifetimes; now smoke everyday or some days) with selected demographic characteristics (age, sex, education, race/ethnicity, income). Overall, 20.8% of U.S. adults were current smokers; Of these, 74.4% were non-Hispanic whites, 12.7% non-Hispanic blacks, 9.7% Hispanics, 2.2% Asians, and 1% American Indians/Alaskan Natives; 55.3% were men and 44.7% women, with Hispanic (11.9%) and Asian (3.1%) men accounting for a larger proportion of smokers than Hispanic and Asian women (7.0% and 1.2%, respectively); 30% had a high school education and 30.1% had some college; 42% were aged 25–44 years and 35.3% were aged 45–64; 40% had incomes ≥2.5 times the poverty level. Analyses indicated that the demographic profile of the cigarette smoking population is similar to the general U.S. population. Given this, it is important to assess both smoking prevalence within demographic groups and the demographic distribution of smokers. Implementing both population-wide interventions and programs that target high-risk demographic groups are critical to accelerating the reduction in overall smoking prevalence.