Healthy People 2010, Tracking our Nation's Progress on Tobacco Use: Where We Are as a Nation

Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the Nation and is a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, and chronic lung diseases. Smoking exacts a toll of 443,000 deaths each year. Healthy People 2010 is a statement of national health objectives designed to identify the most significant preventable threats to health and to establish national goals to reduce these threats. Communities can, and often do, implement the interventions that bring the Nation closer to achieving these objectives.

Key Points: Healthy People 2010: Focus Area 27 – Tobacco Use is one of the leading health indicators used to measure the health of the Nation. As the Nation approaches the end of 2010, tobacco use objectives were examined to determine what progress has been made and what challenge areas remain for reducing, and ultimately, ending the tobacco use epidemic.

Benefits: Most objectives are improving or remaining much the same. Of the objectives and subobjectives, 5 have met or exceeded their target, 23 are moving toward the target, 10 are showing little or no change, and 2 are moving away from the target.

While significant progress is being made towards reaching the Healthy People 2010 objectives, comprehensive programs are needed to end the tobacco epidemic. If states fully invested in comprehensive tobacco control and prevention at CDC recommended levels for 5 years, there would be an estimated 5 million fewer smokers. As a result, hundreds of thousands of premature tobacco related deaths would be prevented.