Smokeless Tobacco Use (Tables 8.8 to 8.11)

Far fewer people have used smokeless tobacco than have smoked cigarettes. An estimated 17% of the U.S. population aged 12 or older had ever tried smokeless tobacco, 5% had used it in the past year, and only 3%had used it in the past month. In comparison, 71% of the population aged 12 or older had ever smoked a cigarette, 33% had smoked in the past year, and 30% had smoked in the past month (Tables 8.1 to 8.3).

Trend data from Chapter 2 indicate that rates of past year and current (i.e., past month) smokeless tobacco use did not change significantly for most age groups from 1996 to 1997. The one notable exception is that current use among young adults aged 18 to 25 decreased significantly from 6.1% in 1996 to 4.5% in 1997 (Table 2.11).

Smokeless Tobacco Use, by Age Group, Gender, and Race/Ethnicity. As shown in Tables 8.9 and 8.10, some of the highest rates of smokeless tobacco use in the past year or past month were among adults aged 18 to 34, and particularly among males and whites in these age categories. For example, 16% of young adult males aged 18 to 25 and 12% of middle adult males aged 26 to 34 had used smokeless tobacco in the past year. About 9% of young adult males and 8% of middle adult males were current smokeless tobacco users. Moreover, the rates of current smokeless tobacco use among young adult and middle adult males were about 30 to 40 times the corresponding rates among females in these age groups.

Similarly, 11% of young adult whites had used smokeless tobacco in the past year, compared with about 2% and 3% of blacks and Hispanics, respectively. In addition, the rate of current smokeless tobacco use among young adult whites (6%) was nearly 5 times the rate for young adult blacks (1%) and more than 10 times the rate for young adult Hispanics (0.6%).

Table 8.11 further indicates that white males aged 18 to 34 were more likely than other demographic subgroups to have used smokeless tobacco in the past year or past month. In particular, 21% of white males aged 18 to 25 were past year smokeless tobacco users, compared with about 4% to 5% of young adult males who were black or Hispanic. About 15% of white males aged 26 to 34 used smokeless tobacco in the past year, compared with about 3% to 4% of black or Hispanic males in this age group. In addition, about 11% to 12% of males in young adult and middle adult age groups were current smokeless tobacco users compared with about 1% to 3% of their black or Hispanic counterparts.

Smokeless Tobacco Use, by Other Demographic Characteristics. Tables 8.9 and 8.10 also indicate relationships between past year or past month smokeless tobacco use and population density, region, education, and current employment. People who were living in nonmetropolitan areas had significantly higher rates of past year or current smokeless tobacco use compared with people living in large or small metropolitan areas; the only exception was that past year smokeless tobacco use among adults aged 35 or older did not differ significantly between the nonmetropolitan and small metropolitan areas. In general, rates were higher in the South than in the other regions, particularly among those aged 35 or older. Among youths, however, rates of past year smokeless tobacco use did not differ significantly by region. Only the rates of current smokeless tobacco use in the South and West were significantly different for youths.

As was the case for cigarette use, rates of past year and current smokeless tobacco use were lowest among members of the adult population who had a college education or higher. Among young adults, however, only past year smokeless tobacco use was significantly lower among adults with a college education; rates of current use did not differ significantly by educational level for this age group.

Unlike the pattern for cigarette use by employment, rates of past year and current smokeless tobacco use were highest among adults who were employed full-time, and rates of smokeless tobacco use among unemployed adults tended to be comparable to the rates for the part-time employed and "other" employment status groups. In particular, about 11% of young adults who were employed full-time used smokeless tobacco in the past year, compared with about 5% to 6% of young adults in the other employment status groups. Rates of current smokeless tobacco use among young adults who were employed full-time also were significantly higher than the rates in the other employment groups.

This page was last updated on December 30, 2008.