Utah has lowest smoking rate
Also fewest lung cancer deaths in U.S., report says

WASHINGTON -- The nation's top health officials would probably prefer the rest of the nation -- especially its youths -- be more like Utahns when it comes to avoiding cigarettes.

Utah again has by far the lowest rate of smoking in the nation among both youths and adults. Not coincidentally, it also has by far the lowest death rate from lung cancer, according to an annual report to the nation on cancer.Federal officials said even though lung cancer rates nationally have decreased recently because fewer adults now smoke, cigarette use among adolescents remains too high. And that may soon start to push lung cancer rates back up again.

Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E. Shalala told a news conference that the report "highlights the need to address the problem of tobacco use by young people."

"Lung cancer causes more deaths than any other cancer. Unless we invest now in anti-tobacco efforts aimed at our youngest citizens, we will waste the progress we have achieved so far and lose yet another generation to lung cancer and other tobacco-related illnesses."

The annual report by the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American Cancer Society looked at rates for all forms of cancer. But it especially focused on lung cancer because of dangers officials pre- dict from too-high smoking rates among youth.

Nationally, 36.4 percent of high school youth had smoked within a month of when they were questioned in a 1997 survey, the newly released data show.

But in Utah, only 16.4 percent had -- less than half the national average. Kentucky had the highest rate: 47 percent.

Officials have long credited low smoking rates in Utah to its large population of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which preaches against use of tobacco.

The report noted Utah also had the lowest death rate for lung cancer between 1990 and 1996: 21.7 people per 100,000 residents.

That was less than half of the national average of 49.7 per 100,000 residents. The highest rate in any state was 67.9 percent in Kentucky.

Not surprisingly, Utah also had the lowest rate of cigarette use among adults in 1997: 13.7 percent (compared to the national average of 23.1 percent). And Kentucky had the highest: 30.8 percent.