State-specific prevalence among adults of current cigarette smoking and smokeless tobacco use and per capita tax-paid sales of cigarettes--United States, 1997.

In the United States each year, tobacco use causes approximately 400,000 deaths and is the single most preventable cause of death and disease. Consequently, state and local public health agencies closely monitor tobacco use and its correlates. In 1996, the prevalence of current cigarette smoking among adults was the first health behavior and the first noninfectious condition added by the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) to the list of nationally notifiable conditions reported to CDC. In 1998, per capita sales of cigarettes (along with prevalence among youth of current cigarette smoking and current smokeless tobacco use) was added by CSTE to the list of notifiable conditions reported by states to CDC. This report summarizes state-specific findings for current cigarette and current smokeless tobacco use by adults from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and number of packs of tax-paid cigarettes sold per capita in each state from data compiled annually by The Tobacco Institute. The findings indicate that current adult cigarette smoking prevalence by state ranged from 13.7% to 30.8%, annual per capita tax-paid cigarette sales ranged from 49.1 packs to 186.8 packs, and adult smokeless tobacco use prevalence ranged from 1.4% to 8.8%.