Survey Finds Decrease in Smoking Rates Among Women High School Seniors

Each year, the Monitoring the Future program surveys 50,000 students in 8th, 10th, and 12th grade on smoking, alcohol, drug use, and other behaviors. The Monitoring the Future Study is funded under a series of investigator-initiated competing research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health. The research is conducted at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

Survey results show an encouraging trend in cigarette smoking among American teenagers. In 2013, only 16.3 percent of American teenagers in 12th grade reporting smoking cigarettes over the past 30 days. This is down from 24.4 percent a decade ago.

In 2013, 13.2 percent of 12th grade girls reported smoking cigarettes in the 30 days prior to the survey compared to 18.4 of 12th grade boys. In 2003, 22.1 percent of 12th grade girls smoked cigarettes. Twenty years ago in 1993, 28.7 percent of 12th grade girls smoked cigarettes.