(HealthScoutNews) -- Cigarette smoking among women remains near an all-time high, in part because of a tobacco industry advertising campaign that has successfully targeted younger women, says a new Surgeon General's Report.

The Smoking and Women report starts with a striking statistic: "This year alone, lung cancer will kill nearly 68,000 women. That's one of every four cancer deaths among women, and about 27,000 more deaths than from breast cancer (41,000)."

The overall smoking toll from conditions such as heart disease was 165,000 premature deaths of women in 1999, the report says, adding that "women also face unique health effects from smoking, such as problems related to pregnancy."

Smoking is one area in which women have almost reached equality with men, says Terry Pechacek, associate director for science in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Office of Smoking and Health.

"Women in former generations smoked at a rate lower than men," Pechacek says. "Men smoked much more than women in the decades of the 40s and 50s. Women came to the addiction a little later than men, because social restrictions kept women from smoking. Now women smoke almost as much as men."

In 1998, 22 percent of women smoked cigarettes, says the report. The lowest rate of smoking is among women with the most education; 32.9 percent of women with nine to 11 years of education smoke, compared to only 11.2 percent of women with 16 or more years of education. Among ethnic groups, the prevalence of smoking is higher among white women (23.5 percent) than among blacks (21.9 percent) or Hispanics (13.8 percent).

Social factors have a major effect.

"Girls who initiate smoking are more likely than those who do not to have parents or friends who smoke," the report says. "They also tend to have weaker attachments to parents and families, and attachments to peers and friends."

They also have a positive image of smoking -- which advertising has a lot to do with, Pechacek says.

"The industry is spending a record amount of money promoting the behavior," he says. "In 1999, it spent $9.3 billion promoting the product."

There is some good news, although not enough of it, he says.

"Males and females alike are starting to show a slow decline in smoking," Pechacek says. "The most recent data on high school students show a steady decline since 1997, among both males and females. But it is a much more gradual decline than we would like to see."

There is a slim chance of achieving the government's goal of reducing smoking by half, to 12 percent of the population, Pechacek says. One favorable trend is monetary. "Price is one preventive," he says, and the price of cigarettes has been going up in many places. New York City, where a pack now can cost $7 because of a new tax increase, is one major example, but more than 20 states raised cigarette taxes last year, Pechacek says.

"Also, the federal government is in a partnership to give wider access to effective smoking technology," he says. The CDC is working with the American Cancer Society and the American Legacy Foundation, which was established with money from the tobacco industry's $280 billion settlement in 1998, to put more people into smoking cessation programs.

While women are quitting at rates similar to or even higher than men, "it will take a lot of coordinated effort to reach our goal," Pechacek says.

What To Do

Learn more about the burdens of smoking from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If you are a smoker, information about quitting is available from the American Cancer Society.

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