Smoking Kills 178,000 American Women Every Year
More women become ill and die from smoking-related diseases than any other single preventable cause. According to a U.S. Surgeon General report, tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States, accounting for more than 400,000 deaths each year.
The really sad news is that most of those deaths are entirely preventable. For adult women, smoking is legal, and it is a personal choice. In many cases it is a deadly choice.
"When calling attention to public health problems, we must not misuse the word 'epidemic.' But there is no better word to describe the 600-percent increase since 1950 in women's death rates for lung cancer, a disease primarily caused by cigarette smoking. Clearly, smoking-related disease among women is a full-blown epidemic. – Office of the U.S. Surgeon General
When the U.S. Surgeon General outlines the facts and figures for you and your daughters, the situation in the United States might be worse than you imagined.
The Facts
- Nearly all women who now smoke got started as teenagers. So the best solution is to never start.
- An estimated 178,000 women in the United States will die from smoking-related causes this year. More than three million women have died from smoking-related causes since 1980.
- Lung cancer, largely caused by smoking, exceeds breast cancer deaths by more than 27,000 annually – and it's preventable.
- More than 22 million American women still smoke. More than one third of all high school girls smoke.
- Women at the highest education levels (16 years+) have only one-third the smoking rate of women who did not complete high school.
- 10 to 22 percent of American women smoke while pregnant.
- Women who smoke two packs a day have 20 times the risk of lung cancer as non-smoking women do.
- Women smokers over 45 years old have twice the annual risk of death of non-smokers.
- 90 percent of the deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) among women in the United States can be attributed to cigarette smoking.
- The tobacco industry spends more than $8 billion in the United States each year for marketing cigarettes. Much of the advertising is geared specifically toward women and girls.
What Can Be Done?
The Surgeon General's goal is to cut smoking in half among women.
"We know more than enough to prevent and reduce tobacco use. Now we must commit the attention and resources to translate this knowledge into action to save women's lives." David Satcher, MD, PhD, former U.S. Surgeon General
Those who quit smoking can usually regain normal health and reduce many health risks in a few years.
One of the key solutions for preventing and reducing smoking outlined in the report was to encourage quitting among women of all ages. The report noted that quitting reaps immediate health benefits.
Talk to your daughters (and to yourself if necessary). Smoking-related deaths can be reduced through education, role modeling, and good decision making. |
