Smoking Among Women Across the Life Span: Prevalence, Interventions, and Implications for Cessation Research

Smoking has a significant effect on the major causes of death and disability among America's women—coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, and osteoporosis. In addition, when pregnant women smoke, they not only adversely affect themselves but also the health, development, and functioning of their unborn and young children. Although the prevalence of smoking among women in the United States has been declining over the last two and a half decades, the data indicate that women lag behind men in the degree to which they have reduced their smoking. Initiation of smoking continues to be a major problem for young women, especially those of low educational attainment. The differences in changes in smoking rates between men and women and for women at different educational levels suggest the need for targeted smoking cessation programs which address issues of specific concern to women smokers, such as weight gain and stress reduction, and those of concern to individuals of lower educational levels. This article provides information regarding the prevalence and onset of smoking among women and rates of cessation across the life span, with a special emphasis on smoking during reproductive and child-raising years. A major focus is the review of the scientific literature on intervention strategies found to be efficacious in the health care sector with women smokers, giving special emphasis to interventions with pregnant women. The implications of the research outcomes for identifying research needs in clinic-based smoking interventions for women and for the training of health care professionals to intervene with women smokers are also discussed.