29% of Maine pregnant women on Medicaid use tobacco during their pregnancy compared to 7% for all pregnant women in Maine.
PRAMS 2003.
About one in three Maine pregnant teens use tobacco during their pregnancy.
PRAMS 2003.
31% of Maine citizens earning less than $25,000 per year use tobacco, compared to 13% of Mainers who earn over $50,000.
BRFSS 2004.
29% of Maine citizens with a high school degree or less use tobacco, compared to 10% of Maine college graduates.
BRFSS 2004.
The Partnership For a Tobacco-Free Maine
pays special attention to populations that are affected by
tobacco use and finds solutions that work.
Tobacco Use Among Youth
Nationwide more than 3 million kids age 12-17 are current smokers.
16.2% of Maine high school students smoke. YRBSS 2004
Almost 90% of adult smokers began at or before age 18.
86% of youth(12-17) smokers prefer Marlboro, Camel and Newport –
the three most heavily advertised brands. Marlboro, the most heavily
advertised brand constitutes almost 55% of the youth market buy only
about 35% of smokers over age 25.
2,400 kids under 18 become new daily smokers each year in Maine. CTFK
29,200 Maine kids under 18 and alive in Maine will ultimately
die prematurely from smoking. CTFK
3.8 million packs of cigarettes are bought or smoked by
kids in Maine each year. CTFK
Tobacco Use Among Adults
21.0% (215,654) adults in Maine smoke. CTFK
2,200 adults will die each year from their own smoking. CTFK
Tobacco-Caused Monetary
Costs in Maine
Annual health care costs in Maine directly caused by smoking: $554 million. CTFK
Portion covered by the state Medicaid program: $199 million. CTFK
Residents state and federal tax burden from smoking-caused government
expenditures: $618 per household. CTFK
Smoking-caused productivity losses in Maine: $472 million. CTFK
Reducing public exposure to
secondhand smoke is an important PTM goal for the
following reasons:
Exposure to secondhand smoke is the third leading cause of preventable death in America, killing over 50,000 people and 6,000 children every year.
In Maine, seven people die from tobacco use every day, one being a nonsmoker exposed to secondhand smoke.
Smoke from the burning end of a cigarette contains over 4,000 chemicals and 40 carcinogens, including formaldehyde, cyanide, arsenic, carbon monoxide, methane, and benzene. The smoker, and anyone else nearby, inhales these chemicals.
The Environmental Protection Agency has classified secondhand smoke as a Group A carcinogen—the most dangerous category of cancer-causing agents.
Secondhand smoke can triple an infants risk of dying from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
Children exposed to secondhand smoke have an increased risk of contracting
serious respiratory tract infections such as bronchitis, pneumonia, and asthma.
Annually, between 150,000 and 300,000 in the U.S., infants and young children develop such
infections due to secondhand smoke, with 7,500 to 15,000 requiring hospitalization.
Secondhand smoke triggers up to 26,000 new cases of asthma in the U.S. each year, and exacerbates asthmatic symptoms in some one million children. Maine has the highest rate of asthma in the nation.
