High school students who tried to quit smoking cigarettes--United States, 2007.

In the United States, cigarette use is the leading cause of preventable death, and most adult smokers started before the age of 18 years. Nicotine dependence maintains tobacco use and makes quitting difficult. Despite their relatively short smoking histories, many adolescents who smoke are nicotine dependent, and such dependence can lead to daily smoking. To examine the extent to which high school students had tried to quit smoking cigarettes, CDC analyzed data from the 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), a nationally representative survey of students in grades 9-12 in the United States. This report describes the results of that analysis, which found that 60.9% of students who ever smoked cigarettes daily tried to quit smoking cigarettes, and 12.2% were successful. These findings indicate that comprehensive tobacco control programs need to continue to implement community-based interventions that prevent initiation and increase cessation and increase the use of evidence-based cessation strategies for youths.