Tobacco Product Use Among U.S. Middle and High School Students - National Youth Tobacco Survey, 2023.

Tobacco product use during adolescence increases the risk for lifelong nicotine addiction and adverse health consequences. CDC and the Food and Drug Administration analyzed data from the 2023 National Youth Tobacco Survey to assess tobacco product use patterns among U.S. middle school (grades 6-8) and high school (grades 9-12) students. In 2023, 10.0% of middle and high school students (2.80 million) reported current (i.e., past 30-day) use of any tobacco product. Current use of any tobacco product by high school students declined by an estimated 540,000, from 2.51 million in 2022 to 1.97 million in 2023. From 2022 to 2023, current e-cigarette use among high school students declined from 14.1% to 10.0%. Among middle and high school students, e-cigarette products were the most used tobacco product in 2023 (7.7%; 2.13 million), followed by cigarettes (1.6%), cigars (1.6%), nicotine pouches (1.5%), smokeless tobacco (1.2%), other oral nicotine products (1.2%), hookahs (1.1%), heated tobacco products (1.0%), and pipe tobacco (0.5%). Among students who had ever used an e-cigarette, 46.7% reported current use. In 2023, among students reporting current e-cigarette use, 89.4% used flavored products and 25.2% used an e-cigarette daily; the most commonly reported brands were Elf Bar, Esco Bars, Vuse, JUUL, and Mr. Fog. Given the number of middle and high school students that use tobacco products, sustained efforts to prevent initiation of tobacco product use among young persons and strategies to help young tobacco users quit are critical to reducing U.S. youth tobacco product use.

National Survey of US Long-Haul Truck Driver Health and Injury: health behaviors.

OBJECTIVE: To compare selected health behaviors and body mass index (modifiable risk factors) of US long-haul truck drivers to the US working population by sex. METHODS: The National Survey of US Long-Haul Truck Driver Health and Injury interviewed a nationally representative sample of long-haul truck drivers (n = 1265) at truck stops. Age-adjusted results were compared with national health surveys. RESULTS: Compared with US workers, drivers had significantly higher body mass index, current cigarette use, and pack-years of smoking; lower prevalence of annual influenza vaccination; and generally lower alcohol consumption. Physical activity level was low for most drivers, and 25% had never had their cholesterol levels tested. CONCLUSIONS: Working conditions common to long-haul trucking may create significant barriers to certain healthy behaviors; thus, transportation and health professionals should address the unique work environment when developing interventions for long-haul drivers.

Obesity and other risk factors: the national survey of U.S. long-haul truck driver health and injury.

BACKGROUND: Drivers of heavy and tractor-trailer trucks accounted for 56% of all production and nonsupervisory employees in the truck transportation industry in 2011. There are limited data for illness and injury in long-haul truck drivers, which prompted a targeted national survey. METHODS: Interviewers collected data during 2010 from 1,670 long-haul truck drivers at 32 truck stops across the 48 contiguous United States that were used to compute prevalence estimates for self-reported health conditions and risk factors. RESULTS: Obesity (69% vs. 31%, P < 0.01) and current smoking (51% vs. 19%, P < 0.01) were twice as prevalent in long-haul truck drivers as in the 2010 U.S. adult working population. Sixty-one percent reported having two or more of the risk factors: hypertension, obesity, smoking, high cholesterol, no physical activity, 6 or fewer hours of sleep per 24-hr period. CONCLUSION: Survey findings suggest a need for targeted interventions and continued surveillance for long-haul truck drivers.

Mortality among members of a truck driver trade association.

Previous studies report that truck drivers are at increased risk for illness and on-the-job mortality. It is unknown whether owner-operator truck drivers face the same risks as employee drivers, yet few studies have targeted owner-operators as a study population. This study examined the overall and cause-specific mortality ratios for a cohort with owner-operator truck drivers constituting 69% of the study population. Of the 26 major disease classifications and 92 specific causes of death examined, only mortality due to transportation accidents was significantly elevated (standardized mortality ratio=1.52, 95% confidence interval=1.36-1.70). Leading causes of death were ischemic heart disease and lung cancer, although risk was below that of the general population. Transportation accidents pose a particular hazard for members of the trade association. The absence of excess disease mortality deserves careful interpretation, and may be due to both a strong healthy worker effect and a short monitoring period.

Race, occupation, and lung cancer: detecting disparities with death certificate data.

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether the analysis of death certificate data would reveal the same relationship among race, occupational exposure, and lung cancer mortality observed by a large cohort study. METHODS: An occupation-specific mortality odds ratio (MOR) for lung cancer (ICD-162) versus all other causes was calculated for 218,341 black men and white men who had been employed in the metal industries. RESULTS: Black men were at increased risk for lung cancer mortality when compared with white men among the 4668 oven workers (MOR = 1.38, 95% CI = 1.10 to 1.73), but not among the 33,605 white-collar workers (MOR = 0.95, 95% CI = 0.74 to 1.23). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings corroborate a previously demonstrated association among exposure to carcinogenic coke oven emissions, race, and lung cancer mortality, and support the use of death certificate data to help identify occupations with racial disparities in lung cancer mortality.