Indicator Report - High School Students Reporting Current Use of Tobacco Products
Why Is This Important?
"Preventing youth from using tobacco is important to reducing the overall smoking rate. Most adults who use tobacco began
smoking before the age of 18 years, with the average age of initiation between 12 and 14 years. Smokers typically become addicted
to nicotine before they reach age 20. Youth who use other tobacco products (OTPs) are more likely to smoke." - North Carolina
Institute of Medicine. Healthy North Carolina 2020: A Better State of Health.
Percentage of High School Students Reporting Current Use of Any Tobacco Product North Carolina vs. HNC 2020 Target, 2009-2011
Data Notes
This measure is based on data from the North Carolina Youth Tobacco Survey (NC YTS). The NC YTS is a comprehensive statewide
representative sample of middle and high school students (grades 6-12). High school students are those in grades 9-12.
The HNC 2020 target, which is the target to be reached by 2020, is repeated in the data table for graphing purposes.
Estimates for tobacco use are based on self-reported use of tobacco products. According to the YTS, tobacco products include
cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco, pipes, bidis and kreteks. Current use is defined as using any tobacco product on at
least one day during the thirty days before the survey.
How We Calculated the Rates
Numerator:
Number of high school students reporting current use of tobacco products
Denominator:
Number of high school students responding to the YTS survey
Page Content Updated On 06/01/2012,
Published on 06/01/2012
State Center for Health Statistics, N.C. Division of Public Health, Telephone: 919-733-4728, Fax: 919-733-8485
The information published on this
website may be reproduced without permission. Please use the following
citation: Retrieved Sat, 18 May 2013 4:14:14
from the HealthStats website.
