Facts About
Smoking
Among
African Americans
Interested in smoking information specific to African Americans? Read on for more!
- Are menthol cigarettes marketed more to African Americans than to white smokers? According to the Surgeon General, yes! Nearly 66% of cigarette advertisements in African American magazines are for menthol cigarettes, compared to 15% of cigarette ads in general population magazines.
- More than 75% of African American smokers smoke menthol cigarettes as compared to 23% of white smokers.
- The cigarettes smoked most often by African American teens are Newport (61%), Kool (11%), and Salem (10%) - all of those are mentholated brands. (SGR, 1998)
- Smoking rates among African American high school students rose 80% from 1991 to 1997! The smoking rate for African American males doubled in that time from 14.1% to 28.2%!
- African American men have a lung cancer death rate 50% higher than white men. This means that if you compare an African American man with lung cancer and a white man with lung cancer, the African American man is 50% more likely to die of his disease.
- More than 80% of African American men who smoke and get lung cancer die from the disease, compared with 54% of their white counterparts.