California’s Lung Cancer Decline Shows Effectiveness of Tobacco Control

WASHINGTON—California’s aggressive tobacco control efforts, which include raising tobacco taxes and using some of that revenue for prevention efforts, appear to have played a significant role in the state’s decrease in lung cancer rates, according to a new collaborative study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the California Department of Health Services.

The study showed a decline in lung and bronchus cancer incidence from 1988 to 1997 of 14% for California, compared with 2.7% for eight selected regions of the country. The incidence rate decreased 4.8% among California women, while rising 13.2% in the comparison regions. Among California men, the rate of decline was 1.5 times greater than that seen in the other areas studied.