past than it is today, because much of the glamor has been stripped from tobacco smoking, and anti smoking educational campaigns have been effective. The scope of the problem, however, remains wide. In 1965, 50.2 percent of males and 31.9 percent of females over the age of 18 years in the United States smoked tobacco products (The National Centers for Disease Control, 1991). By 1988 (the latest year for which data are available), only 30.9 percent of males and 26.2 percent of females over the age of 18 years smoked tobacco products (The National Centers for Disease Control, 1991). While the reductions in tobacco consumption are impressive, the scope of the smoking problem remains formidable.II. FACTORS INVOLVED
Tobacco smoking behavior is linked to demographic factors. In the past, males were much heavier consumers of tobacco than were females. Male tobacco use is declining far more quickly than is female consumption, however, and, by 1995, the rates should be approximately equal for each sex.
Significantly, within both sexes, smokers are more likely to be young the proportion of smokers declines with advances in age, less well educated the proportion of smokers declines as the level of formal education increases, and economicaly poor the proportion of smokers declines as income levels increase (The National Centers for Disease Control, 1991). A higher proportion of blacks than whites smoke, and a lower proportion of Asians than whites smoke. The proportions of whites and Asians who are current smokers are lower than the national average proportion, which demonstrates the dramatic effect created on the national average proportion by the proportion of blacks who smoke.
Much has been written to the effect that the so called sexual revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, together with the gaining of increased rights by women, is a major causal factor in the narrowing in the gap between the proportions of male and female smok...