Age Differences in the Trends of Smoking Among California Adults: Results from the California Health Interview Survey 2001–2012

The aim is to study the trends of cigarette smoking from 2001 to 2012 using a California representative sample in the US. Data was taken from the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) from 2001 to 2012, which is a population-based, biennial, random digit-dial telephone survey of the non-institutionalized population. The CHIS is the largest telephone survey in California and the largest state health survey in the US. 282,931 adults (n = 184,454 with age 18–60 and n = 98,477 with age \u3e60) were included in the analysis. Data were weighted to be representative and adjusted for potential covariance and non-response biases. During 2001–2012, the prevalence of current smoking decreased from 18.86 to 15.4 % among adults age 18–60 (β = −0.8, p = 0.0041). As for adults age \u3e60, the prevalence of current smoking trend decreased with variations, started from 9.66 % in 2001, slightly increased to 9.74 % in 2003, but then gradually decreased, falling to 8.18 % in 2012. In 2012, there was a 14 % reduction of daily smoking adults age 18–60 (OR 0.84, 95 % CI 0.76–0.93, p = 0.0006) compared to 2001, while no significant reduction of daily smoking was observed for those age \u3e60. The reductions of smoking prevalence for adults younger than 60 are encouraging. However, there is a concern for smoking cessation rates among those older than 60 years of age, particularly for African Americans