WOMEN AND SMOKING
Fact Sheet - 8/98
Almost 23 percent of all American adult women (22.6 million) are smokers.
While fewer women than men smoke currently, it is estimated that women will
smoke at the same rate as men by the year 2000. The lung cancer incidence
rate in women had been increasing for a long time and reached a high of 43.2
per 100,000 in 1991; in 1995 it was 42.6 per 100,000. In 1987, lung cancer
surpassed breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer deaths among women
in the United States. Smoking is directly responsible for 87 percent of all
lung cancer cases in America each year.
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Current female smokers aged 35 or older are 12 times more likely than nonsmoking
females to die prematurely from lung cancer. In 1998, an estimated 67,000
women will die of lung cancer.
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Current female smokers aged 35 or older are 10.5 times more likely than
nonsmoking females to die from emphysema or chronic bronchitis.
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Cigarette smoking during pregnancy can cause serious health problems for
an unborn child. Cigarette smoking not only passes nicotine on to the fetus;
it also prevents as much as 25 percent of oxygen from reaching the placenta.
Smoking during pregnancy accounts for up to 14 percent of preterm deliveries
and about 10 percent of all infant deaths. Maternal smoking has also been
linked to asthma among infants and young children.
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Mothers who smoke and breast-feed their babies pass nicotine to their children
through breast milk. Additionally, infants are more likely to develop colds,
bronchitis, and other respiratory diseases if secondhand smoke is present
in the home or day care center.
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The sales and advertising drive for women's cigarettes in the late 1960's
and early 1970's coincided with sharp increases in the number of girls, aged
12-17 who began smoking. From 1967 to 1973, when sales of women's cigarettes
skyrocketed, smoking rates more than doubled among 12-year-old girls.
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Teenage girls often start to smoke to avoid weight gain. They also seek to
identify themselves as independent and glamorous, which reflect images projected
by tobacco ads.
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Social images can convince teens that being slightly overweight is worse
than smoking. Cigarette advertising portrays cigarettes as causing slimness
and implies that cigarette smoking suppresses appetite.
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In 1997, 34.7 percent of high school girls were current smokers, meaning
they smoked at least once in the 30 days preceding the survey. In addition,
15.7 percent were frequent smokers, indicating that they smoked on 20 or
more of the 30 days before the survey was taken.
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Since the 1920's, the tobacco industry has targeted women with images ranging
from liberation, glamour, slimness, and feminism.
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Women join smoking cessation groups more often than men for social support,
but they are somewhat less successful than men in quitting smoking.
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Women who quit smoking relapse for different reasons than men. Stress, weight
control, and negative emotions, lead to relapse among women.
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Research in the past 20 years has consistently shown that cigarette smoking
causes skin wrinkling that could make smokers appear less attractive and
prematurely old.
For more information call the American Lung Association at 1-800-LUNG-USA
(1-800-586-4872), or visit our web site at
http://www.lungusa.org.
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