| Demographic Group: | All resident persons. |
| Numerator: | Number of packs of cigarettes sold (i.e., cigarette stamps issued) in a state during a calendar year. |
| Denominator: | Total midyear resident population for the same calendar year. |
| Measures of Frequency: | Annual number of packs sold per capita. |
| Time Period of Case Definition: | Calendar year. |
| Background: | In 2002, a total of 20.4 billion packs of cigarettes were sold in the United States. The national per capita consumption was 71.7 packs of cigarettes. |
| Significance: | Approximately 440,000 deaths each year are attributed to cigarette smoking, making it the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Smoking increases the risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chronic lung disease. Environmental tobacco smoke has been demonstrated to increase the risk for heart disease and cancer among nonsmokers. In each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, purchasing tobacco products is illegal for youth aged <18 years. Sale of packs of cigarettes measures the total population’s consumption of cigarettes. |
| Limitations of Indicator: | Indicator does not convey the number or percentage of residents who smoke or the current or lifetime amount smoked per smoker. Both of these might affect the population’s morbidity and mortality from cigarettes. Cross-border sales can falsely affect resident per-capita sales rates. Per-capita sales rates have been frequently reported using only adults in the denominator, which overestimates the per-capita sales rate for the total population and does not convey the fact that youths aged <18 years also purchase and consume cigarettes. |
| Data Resources: | Sales data from State Tobacco Activities Tracking and Evaluation (STATE) System or state revenue agency (numerator), and population estimates from U.S. Bureau of the Census or suitable alternative (denominator).
http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/statesystem/StateSystem.aspx?selectedTopic=300&measure=18&ucName=UCTimeTrend&dir=epi_report |
| Limitations of Data Resources: | In certain areas, local and state mechanisms for collecting and reporting data from revenue agencies do not exist. When mechanisms do exist, methods might vary across states, affecting comparability of state estimates. States might collect sales data for the fiscal year, which might not correspond to calendar year. |
| Healthy People 2010 Objectives: | No objective. |
