Kenneth E. Warner ^1*, David Mendez ¹, Omar Alshanqeety ¹

¹ University of Michigan School of Public Health

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: kwarner{at}umich.edu.

	Abstract

We examined the effect of demographics on California’s low smoking prevalence. We estimated that if the United States had the same demographics as California, then the US adult smoking prevalence in 2005 would have been 19.3%, 1.6 percentage points lower than the reported 20.9% for the United States, but 4.1 percentage points higher than California’s prevalence of 15.2% in 2005. Tobacco control appears to be a much more important factor than demographics in determining California’s low smoking rates.

Key Words: Epidemiology, Health Policy, Prevention, Public Health Practice, Race/Ethnicity, Tobacco Control