Kentucky’s adult smoking rate falls below 25% for the first time

For the first time since state smoking rates were measured, fewer than one in four Kentucky adults are smokers, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate in 2010 was 24.8 percent, down from 28.7 percent in 2009. The rates are based on a national survey of 17,000 adults.

The national average of 19.3 percent, down 1.6 percent from 2005, is “slower than in the previous five-year period,” the CDC reports in a release. This decline may be due in part to “increases in federal and state taxes on cigarettes and new clean air laws,” Dr. Tim McAfee, director of the CDC’s office on smoking and health told Lindsey Tanner of The Associated Press. (Read more)