WASHINGTON — The campaign to reduce teenagers’ smoking has stalled, new federal data show, dismaying federal health officials and anti-smoking advocates who said that one of the nation’s most important public-health priorities is faltering.
Smoking by teenagers fell sharply and steadily between 1997 and 2003, but the latest data from a large federal survey tracking smoking and other risky behaviors among young people found the proportion of teens who smoke leveled off between 2003 and 2007.
“This is the most dramatic indication that the great progress we were making has stalled,” said Terry Pechacek of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which released the data last week. “This has very negative long-term implications.”
Anti-smoking advocates agreed.
“More progress must be made to ensure youngsters at these critical age levels continue to turn away from smoking,” Cheryl Healton of the American Legacy Foundation, a Washington D.C.-based anti-smoking group, said in a statement.
The data released last week come from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a nationally representative survey that the federal government conducts of students in grades nine through 12 every two years to track a variety of risk behaviors, including drug, alcohol and tobacco use.
The proportion of students who smoke soared from 27.5 percent in 1991 to 36.4 percent in 1997 but then began to fall, hitting 21.9 percent in 2003.
The 2005 survey, however, showed the rate had crept up to 23 percent. Because that change was not statistically significant, officials were waiting for the 2007 figures to determine whether the downward trend had actually stalled.
The 2007 figure is slightly lower at 20 percent, but again, the change is not statistically significant.
Although the survey did show continued declines in some groups, most notably African-American girls, the overall downward trend stalled.
“There have been fluctuations between subgroups, but the bottom line is we are not on the decline anymore. We are confident that is a scientifically defined fact,” Pechacek said.
