Data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveals that counties with the highest prevalence of current cigarette smokers were in Arkansas, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin.

As reported previously, the highest proportion of current cigarettes smokers was seen in parts of the Midwest and South. Roughly one in four adults in West Virginia (24.81%), Kentucky (24.56%), and Tennessee (23.51%) were active smokers.

Utah (9.6%), California (13.0%), and Hawaii (14.96%) were the states with the lowest current cigarette smoking percentages, and the Northeast had the highest prevalence of former smokers by region.

Zahava Berkowitz, MSPH, of the CDC’s Division of Cancer Prevention, said the large variation in county-level smoking patterns across the United States is notable.

The latest smoking distribution findings were published Oct. 3 in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention.

“We have known about the state-by-state variation [in smoking prevalence] for some time, but it is important to hone in on county-level variation to have a more fine-grained picture of the geographic variability,” Berkowitz noted in a written press statement.

Read the full story at www.medpagetoday.com