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Tobacco Use Among High School
Students — United States, 1997
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The Friday, April 3, 1998, issue of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
contains the article, "Tobacco Use Among High School Students—United
States, 1997." The data, reported from the 1997 Youth Risk Behavior Survey,
found that past-month smoking rates among high students are on the rise—increasing by nearly a
third from 27.5 percent in 1991 to 36.4 percent in 1997. Nearly half (48.2 percent) of
male students and more than a third (36 percent) of female students reported using some
form of tobacco—cigarette, cigar, or smokeless tobacco—in the past month. Among
African American students, whose low smoking rates over the past decade have been a public
health success story, past-month cigarette smoking rates increased by an estimated 80
percent from 1991 to 1997.
Other findings of the study include
- More than half (51.5 percent) of white male high school students and more
than a third (40.8 percent) of white female students reported using cigarettes, cigars, or
smokeless tobacco in the past month.
- Current cigarette smoking prevalence was highest among white students (39.7
percent), increasing by 28 percent from 1991 (30.9 percent). However, the rate of increase
was most dramatic among African American students, climbing by 80 percent between 1991
(12.6 percent) and 1997 (22.7 percent). For Hispanic students, smoking prevalence
increased by 34 percent—from 25.3 percent in 1991 to 34.0 percent in 1997.
- The overall smokeless tobacco prevalence rate was much higher among male
(15.8 percent) than among female (1.5 percent) students. White male students (20.6
percent) were significantly more likely to use smokeless tobacco products than were any
other subgroup of high school students.
- About one in five students (22.0 percent) reported using cigars in the past
month. An estimated three in 10 male students (31.2 percent) had used cigars compared with
about one in 10 female students (10.8 percent).
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