CDC: Percentage of American smokers hits new low

The proportion of American adults who smoke cigarettes has hit a new low, new federal data show. And among those who do smoke, fewer are lighting up every day, and even they are smoking fewer cigarettes.

A national health survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 17.8 percent of U.S. adults – or 42.1 million people – were “current cigarette smokers” in 2013. That’s the lowest percentage since the annual survey began keeping track in 1965, according to the authors of a study published Wednesday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

But Americans still have a way to go to meet the nation’s Healthy People 2020 target, the study notes. That target, set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, aims to limit the adult smoking rate at no more than 12 percent.

Smoking is the leading cause of premature death in the U.S., killing 480,000 Americans each year and costing the economy $289 billion in annual health costs and lost productivity, the report’s authors noted.

The data in the report come from the National Health Interview Survey, an in-person survey conducted every year with a representative sample of American adults who aren’t serving in the military or institutionalized.