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Tobacco Prevention: A Top Priority

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Washington Healthy Communities Resource Center

Making Washington a Healthier Place to Live

Tobacco remains the main cause of preventable disease and death in Washington state, killing about 7,600 people every year.  This despite major gains in reducing tobacco use and exposure since the Washington State Department of Health started the Tobacco Prevention and Control Program nearly ten years ago.

While adult smoking has declined by 30 percent, from 22.4 percent in 1999 to 14.9 percent in 2010, about 760,000 Washingtonians still smoke.  In addition, some racial and ethnic groups, and people with less education and income, use tobacco at much higher rates.

So far youth smoking has dropped by 50 percent, but 70,000 of our youth still smoke.  In fact, 50 kids start smoking every day.  And now many of them are using other types of tobacco, such as cigars, smokeless products, chew, snuff, pipes and flavored cigarettes (bidis). 

What should we be doing about youth tobacco use?  You’ll find answers to this and other youth-related questions in the Disparities in Youth Tobacco Use in Washington State report.  It shows the key findings in youth tobacco use rates and the connection between cigarette smoking and other behaviors and risk factors.

And you can check on the progress of the overall tobacco prevention effort in the 2011 Tobacco Prevention and Control Program Progress Report.  The program has made steady progress in meeting its long-term objectives of reducing tobacco-related disease and death.  The number of adult smokers has declined by 329,000, and secondhand smoke exposure in Washington homes has declined by 79 percent since 2000.  All of this and much more can be found in the Progress Report.
 

Youth Disparities Report (PDF 648 KB)	2011 Progress Report (PDF 360 KB)
For more reports, click here

 

* Links to external resources are provided as a public service for educational purposes only. External links do not imply endorsement by the Washington State Department of Health of any political, commercial, promotional or other proprietary content that may be included in linked Web sites.

Linked external Web pages are routinely monitored by the Department for materials that advocate for political outcomes. If you find any materials on a directly linked Web page that advocates for, or against, any political candidates, ballot measures, or referendums, please contact us immediately so that the link may be promptly removed.

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