In 1999, approximately 165,000 women died prematurely from smoking-related diseases, like cancer and heart disease. Women also face unique health effects from smoking such as problems related to pregnancy. Smoking rates among women with less than a high school education are three times higher than for college graduates. Nearly all women who smoke started as teenagers - and 30 percent of high school senior girls are still current smokers. We have the solutions for preventing and reducing smoking among women.
Quitting smoking has great health benefits for women of all ages.
Thanks to an aggressive, sustained anti-smoking program, California has seen a decline in women's lung cancer rates while they are still rising in the rest of the country. The voice of women is needed to counter tobacco marketing campaigns that equate success for women with smoking. But there is no better word to describe the 600-percent increase since 1950 in women's death rates for lung cancer, a disease primarily caused by cigarette smoking. This report summarizes what is now known about smoking among women, including patterns and trends in smoking habits, factors associated with starting to smoke and continuing to smoke, the consequences of smoking on women's health and interventions for cessation and prevention. What the report also makes apparent is how the tobacco industry has historically and contemporarily created marketing specifically targeted at women.