Men and women who did not finish high school were two to three times more likely to smoke than college graduates. About one-quarter of American adults are overweight. About 46 percent of overweight men and 61 percent of overweight women reported trying to lose weight in 1990. Among the overweight men and women trying to lose weight about half were using both diet and exercise. Breast cancer is the leading type of cancer for females with an incidence rate more than twice as high as lung cancer.
Survival depends upon early diagnosis and treatment.
In 1990 about 47 percent of women aged 50 years and over had received a clinical breast examination and mammogram within the past two years. Workdays lost to occupational injuries are up, an average annual rise of 4 percent from 1983 to 1989. Rates of workdays lost are highest among the construction, mining and transportation industries. Between 1985 and 1990, the number of persons employed in the health service industry grew by 19 percent compared with 9 percent for all other industries. The report documents the continued shift to outpatient surgery, with about half of the surgeries now performed on an ambulatory basis.