Cigarette smoking among adults--United States, 1997.

In the United States, cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality and results in approximately 430,000 deaths each year (1). One of the national health objectives for 2000 is to reduce the prevalence of cigarette smoking among adults to no more than 15% (objective 3.4) (2). To assess progress toward meeting this objective, CDC analyzed self-reported data about cigarette smoking among U.S. adults from the 1997 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) Sample Adult Core Questionnaire. This report summarizes the findings of this analysis, which indicate that, in 1997, 24.7% of adults were current smokers and that the overall prevalence of current smoking in 1997 was unchanged from the overall prevalence of current smoking from the 1995 NHIS.