Youth smoking in the United States has declined dramatically over the past two decades and persistently through a changing tobacco product landscape.
The magnitude of decline is best appreciated by tracing back to the last peak prevalence year, 1997.
In that year, 28.3% of 8th, 10th and 12th graders reported current smoking1 according to data from the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future survey.2 Since that time, smoking has declined by more than 90 percent to just 2.3% in 2021. In other terms, smoking declined from nearly 3 in 10 students in 1997 to about 1 in 50 students in 2021. As a researcher who has closely followed these data for almost 20 years, these results are very promising and gratifying to observe.
Altria – 2022-04-17
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