About three out of four US citizens agree that smoking cigarettes causes health problems, but public perception of the risks posed by smoking may be declining, according to a eurekalert.org story citing a Duke Health study published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
From 2006 to 2015, the number of people in the US who said smoking a pack or more per day posed a great health risk was said to have dropped by one percent, or three million people.
So far, the change in perceived risk has not appeared to result in more smokers. During the same period, the incidence of smoking dropped from 20.8 percent to 15.1 percent, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But, the story warned, the change could signal a potential slowing of progress.
“That’s three million people who might be more likely to start smoking, go back to smoking, or who are less likely to quit if they already smoke,” said Lauren Pacek, PhD, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke.
The change in risk perception changed more significantly in women than in men, the authors found.
“We were surprised by the findings,” said co-author Joe McClernon, PhD, professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences. “Cigarettes haven’t fundamentally changed over the last 15 years. They’re no safer. And we continue to see that large numbers of Americans are dying from tobacco related disease – as many as 400,000 a year. So, it’s curious that the facts haven’t changed, but the risk perceptions have gone down.”
The number of respondents who saw smoking as posing no risk increased from 1.45 percent to 2.63 percent over the 10-year span.
Older teens and adults were more likely than teens 12 to 17 to see smoking as a great health risk. Daily smokers were less likely than former smokers and non-smokers to see cigarette use as dangerous to their health.
A number of factors could be driving the change, McClernon said, including message fatigue.
“The idea here is that Americans have heard so often, and for so long, about how harmful cigarettes are that the message is less impactful,” McClernon said. It might also be possible that fewer people know smokers or people with tobacco-related disease, and this also could decrease perceived harm, he said.
The full story is at: https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-02/dumc-fat022718.php.
Smoking record worn out
