Men From The South Are More Likely To Die From Smoking-Related Cancers

Smoking causes nearly 29 percent of all cancer deaths among Americans over the age of 35, according to a new analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine. But that doesn’t tell the full story. Men from the top five southern states skew this data, dying at a rate that’s 40 percent higher than the national average. The higher proportion of cancer deaths attributable to smoking in the South isn’t simply because people in that region smoke more ― that distinction goes to the Midwest. Instead, experts say, the lack of funding for tobacco control programs means that there are less resources for people who want to quit, and a permissive public indoor smoking policy signals cultural acceptance for a practice that other states stamped out long ago.  Cancer deaths linked to smoking, by state and gender To calculate the rate of cancer deaths from smoking compared to overall cancer deaths, researchers from the American Cancer Society combed through data on 12 cancers caused by cigarette smoking: leukemia, stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, lung cancer and bladder cancer. Then they calculated the number of smokers in each state and then used both sets of figures to estimate the number of cancer deaths linked to smoking in each state. In all, at least 167,133 people died from cancer related to cigarette smoking in 2014 ― about 27 percent of all cancer deaths in the U.S. that year. While in most states, only about one-third of cancer deaths in men and one-qua...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news