Here's some good end-of-year news: Youth smoking rates fell to record lows in 2013.
That's the news from an annual government report, Monitoring the Future, that found that overall youth smoking declined significantly in 2013, and that smoking rates fell to record lows for all three grades surveyed — grades 8, 10 and 12.
It marks the third consecutive year that youth smoking has declined significantly.
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For the three grades combined, the percentage of students that reported smoking cigarettes in the past month fell from 10.6 percent in 2012 to 9.6 percent in 2013. Smoking declined from 17.1 to 16.3 percent among 12th graders, from 10.8 to 9.1 percent among 10th graders and from 4.9 to 4.5 percent among 8th graders.
Researchers said an increase in the federal tax on tobacco products, instituted in 2009, may have contributed to the recent declines in smoking in this age group.
Research is based on annual surveys of 40,000 to 50,000 students in about 400 secondary schools.
"Since the peak year in 1997, the proportion of students currently smoking has dropped by two-thirds —an extremely important development for the health and longevity of this generation of Americans," said Lloyd Johnston, the study's lead researcher and a professor at the University of Michigan.
Most significantly, Johnson said, is the longer-term decline in youth smoking.
"Since teen smoking reached a peak around 1996-1997, the rates of current (past 30-day) smoking have fallen by nearly 80 percent among 8th graders, 70 percent among 10th graders and over 50 percent among 12th graders. Further, the proportional declines in daily smoking are even larger."
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