Tobacco control initiatives cut the number of lung cancer deaths in California by 28%

Abstract

California’s early adoption of antismoking initiatives in the 1980s and 1990s—after tobacco use and lung cancer were indisputably linked—has resulted in a lung cancer mortality rate that is 28% lower in that state compared with the rest of the country, according to a new study published online in Cancer Prevention Research (published online ahead of print October 10, 2018. DOI:10.1158/19406207.CAPR-18-0341). What is more, researchers say, the gap between California’s lung cancer death rate and the national average is growing by nearly a percentage point each year.