Many smokers attempt to quit on this day, more so than on New Year's Day or any other. The focus of the Great American Smokeout has evolved to include youth tobacco prevention. A recent Alabama Youth Tobacco Survey found that 31 percent of all high school students surveyed are current smokers, and of those 62 percent wanted to quit smoking. Another area of concern raised with the Great American Smokeout is Alabamians are encouraged to renew their commitment to a smoke-free environment for themselves and for their children. Workers exposed to secondhand smoke are 37 percent more likely to get lung cancer than workers in smoke-free environments.
Secondhand smoke has an especially bad effect on infants and children whose parents smoke.
A number of studies show that in their first two years of life, babies of parents who smoke at home have a much higher rate of lung diseases such as bronchitis and pneumonia than babies with nonsmoking parents.