This information is for reference purposes only. It was current when produced and may now be outdated. Archive material is no longer maintained, and some links may not work. Persons with disabilities having difficulty accessing this information should contact us at: https://info.ahrq.gov. Let us know the nature of the problem, the Web address of what you want, and your contact information.
Please go to www.ahrq.gov for current information.
AHRQ News and Numbers
Release date: October 25, 2005
In 2003, more than 43 percent of American adults who suffered
from emphysema—a debilitating chronic illness that is associated with cigarette smoking—reported that they still smoked in
spite of their disease when surveyed by the Federal Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality.
AHRQ's Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) also looked at the percentages of Americans
with five other smoking-related diseases who reported that they continued to
smoke. The diseases and percentage of smokers are:
- Asthma—22.2 percent.
- Stroke—21.3 percent.
- Cardiovascular
problems—19.9 percent.
- High blood
pressure—7.9 percent.
- Diabetes—6.0 percent.
MEPS further found that:
- Slightly less
than half of all Americans who smoked in 2003 had a routine check-up within the
last year, compared with 61.1 percent of non-smokers.
- In 2003, nearly
two-thirds (63.6 percent) of those smokers who did have a routine check-up
within the last year were counseled by a physician to stop smoking.
- This is an
increase over the 57 percent in 2000 who reported being counseled by a doctor
to stop smoking.
This AHRQ News
and Numbers was based largely on data in Statistical Brief No. 101: Variations in Smoking by Selected
Demographic, Socioeconomic, Insurance, and Health Characteristics, United States,
2003, available at http://www.meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_files/publications/st101/stat101.pdf [PDF Help].
5600 Fishers Lane Rockville, MD 20857