Teen smoking rates have dropped significantly over the past decade.
In 2013 the high school smoking rate reached its lowest level since 1991, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) news release reported.
The findings were made by the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS).
The U.S. achieved a teen smoking rate of 15.7, meaning the country met its Healthy People 2020 objective of getting the adolescent cigarette use below 16 percent.
Overall tobacco use is on the decline, but in recent years there has been an increase in e-cigarette and hookah use. No change has been observed in adolescent use of smokeless tobacco since 1999 and the decline in cigar use has also slowed down.
“It’s encouraging that high school students are making better health choices such as not fighting, not smoking, and not having sex,” CDC Director Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H., said in the news release. “Way too many young people still smoke and other areas such as texting while driving remain a challenge. Our youth are our future. We need to invest in programs that help them make healthy choices so they live long, healthy lives.”
The report also looked at other health trends such as rates of violence and sexual activity.
They found that the percentage of high school students who had been in at least one physical fight over the past year had decreased from 42 percent in 1991 to 25 percent in 2013.
The percentage of high school students who were sexually active or had engaged in sexual intercourse during the previous three months declined from 38 percent in 1991 to 34 percent in 2013.
“The Youth Risk Behavior Survey is an important tool for understanding how health risk behaviors among youth vary across the nation and over time,” said Laura Kann, Ph.D., chief of CDC’s School-Based Surveillance Branch. “We can use these data to help schools, communities, families, and students reduce youth risk behaviors that are still prevalent and to monitor those that are newly emerging.”
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