Increasing State health officials reported new state data today on trends in the rates of tobacco-caused deaths among Oklahoma women as compared with national rates. A Report of the Surgeon General that provides an overview of problems and solutions of smoking among women and girls in the United States. The Oklahoma data are also compared to tobacco-caused death rates in the State of California, where a comprehensive statewide effort to reduce tobacco use was implemented in 1989. Since 1988, deaths among women due to lung cancer have risen 19.6 percent in Oklahoma compared to a national increase of 17.6 percent and a decrease in California of 2.8 percent.
Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. for both women and men.
Cigarette smoking is responsible for 87 percent of all lung cancer deaths, and accounts for 30 percent of all cancer deaths. Smoking is responsible for 82 percent of all COPD deaths. The data revealed that, since 1988, CVD deaths decreased by only 9.8 percent in Oklahoma compared to 19.6 percent nationally and 22.0 percent in California. About 20 percent of all deaths from cardiovascular diseases are attributable to smoking. Babies that are born too small account for two-thirds of all deaths in the neonatal period.