| HEALTH STATUS - Protective and Risk Factors |
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The percentage of women who smoke, a behavior associated with numerous chronic illnesses, has remained steady over the last several years at slightly more than 20 percent of women aged 18 and older.(1) Results of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's 2000 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) found that, for a broader age group of females aged 12 and older, one quarter of women reported smoking cigarettes in the month prior to the survey. Women aged 18 years and older were less likely than men to have smoked in the prior month. Among adolescents aged 12-17, however, slightly more females than males reported smoking in the past month (14.1 percent versus 12.8 percent). For both sexes combined, cigarette smoking was most prevalent among young adults aged 18-25 and decreased with increasing age to approximately 10 percent for individuals aged 65 and older.
The NHSDA data also showed that White women were more likely to smoke than Black women in 1999/2000. Among females who were not pregnant, nearly 34 percent of White females aged 15-44 smoked cigarettes in 2000 compared to approximately 24 percent of Black women. Although the prevalence of smoking was lower in both White and Black pregnant women as compared to their non-pregnant counterparts, White women were twice as likely to smoke during pregnancy than Black women. The NHSDA survey found a slight decrease in recent years in the proportion of pregnant women who reported cigarette smoking in the past month, from 19.9 percent in 1996/1997 to 18.6 percent in 1999/2000. Maternal smoking during pregnancy is associated with ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages, newborn low birth weight, and infant mortality.
1 - National Center for Health Statistics (2001). Health, United States. Hyattsville, Maryland: DHHS (Table 60).
