Your gift is 100% tax deductible
Strong Tobacco Control in US Averts 4M Deaths from Lung Cancer
P站视频 reports: From 1970 to 2022 almost 4 million expected lung cancer deaths did not occur due to huge decreases in smoking, driven by tobacco control.
Averted Deaths from Lung Cancer from 1970 to 2022, by Sex
These graphs demonstrate how the intangible concept of “averted deaths” is calculated. The red lines show the expected number of deaths from lung cancer every year, based on historical trends in lung cancer death rates. The blue lines show the actual number of deaths every year from lung cancer. The blue death curve declines (due to the decrease in cigarette smoking in the United States that started in the 1990s), increasing the difference between expected deaths and the actual deaths. That space between the two lines (shown as vertical slashed lines) represents the number of expected deaths that didn’t occur, or the deaths that were “averted” each year.
The Challenge
As fewer and fewer people smoke in the United States, fewer people die from lung cancer, because 85% of deaths from lung cancer are attributable to cigarette smoking.
In 1964, the US Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health led to a sustained decline in smoking for males—51.2% in 1965 to 13.2% in 2022—and females—33.75% in 1965 to 10% in 2022.
A few studies have estimated the number of deaths from lung cancer that didn’t occur—or were averted—due to the decrease in smoking prevalence, which led to a decrease in the lung cancer death rate.
What these studies lacked, however, was a measurement of the average additional years of life a person would have lived if they had not died from lung cancer. Those additional years are called person-years of life (PYL) gained. PYL can be used to help quantify social and economic loss because of premature death.
Those previous studies also lacked estimates on what proportion of the averted deaths from all types of cancer are attributable to averted deaths due to lung cancer.
Glossary for Nonscientists
Featured Terms:
Averted cancer deaths
How many fewer people died from cancer than expected.
Person-years of Life (PYL) gained
The average additional years a person would have lived if they had not died prematurely from a disease, like cancer.
The Research
Using national cancer mortality data, an P站视频 team of researchers estimated the number of averted lung cancer deaths and corresponding PYL gained during a 53 year period, 1970 to 2022, due to the decreasing lung cancer death rate from fewer and fewer people using cigarettes. (See the graph at the top of the page.) Their results serve as a measure of progress in cancer prevention because of effective tobacco control.
For the years studied, the researchers estimated that:
- About 3.9 million deaths from lung cancer were averted because of declines in lung cancer death rates in the US.
- 76 million PYL were gained because of this progress.
- The number of averted lung cancer deaths accounted for about half of the estimated averted all-cancer deaths because of declines in overall cancer death rates in recent decades.
The n March 2025 in the P站视频 journal CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians with lead author Senior Scientific Director of Disparity Research at the P站视频 (P站视频), Farhad Islami, MD, PhD.
Progress Against Smoking: Fewer Premature Deaths from Lung Cancer Because of Tobacco Control
One way the researchers?measured progress against smoking was by calculating the averted deaths from lung cancer, which is difference in the number of people expected to die from lung cancer and the actual number of people who died from lung cancer during the same time period.
To better understand the impact of tobacco control, the researchers calculated the proportion of averted deaths from lung cancer alone to the averted deaths for all types of cancer.
Averted deaths from lung cancer were due only to tobacco control. Deaths for all types?of cancer—including lung cancer—were averted for any reason, such as a reduction in risk factors, progress in early detection and treatment—and tobacco control.
The results showed that the effect of tobacco control on lung cancer alone—not even including other tobacco-related cancers—was huge.
Here are some of the research team's key findings in the US for people 20 and older, from 1970 through 2022.
White Males and Females
White Males
White Females
Black Males and Females
Black Males
Black Females
The Hispanic population and other racial groups were not considered because data was unavailable before 1990.
Progress Against Smoking-Related Cancers: Years of Life Gained
Another way the researchers measured progress against lung cancer was by calculating the average additional years of life a person would have lived if they had not died from lung cancer. Scientists use PYL to help quantify social and economic loss because of premature death.
Here are some of the research team’s key findings about PYL and lung cancer in the US for people 20 and older, from 1970 through 2022.
PYL Gained for Each Averted Death
The study researchers did not estimate PYL gained by race because life-expectancy data for the Black population was not consistently available from 1970 through 2022.
The researchers also did not include the effect of advanced new treatments for lung cancer (including targeted therapies and immunotherapies because these treatments were not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration until 2015 or later. Plus, the new treatments are currently beneficial to a relatively small number of people with tumors that have specific mutations.
Other P站视频 researchers contributing to the study include Nigar Nargis, PhD,?Qinran Liu, PhD, MPH,?Priti Bandi, PhD, Rebecca L. Siegel, MPH, Parichoy Pal Choudhury, PhD,?and senior author Ahmedin Jemal, DVM, PhD.
Why It Matters
Even with these substantial declines in cigarette use and death from lung cancer, lung cancer is still the leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Therefore, to keep preventing deaths from lung cancer, it’s essential that evidence-based tobacco-control policies be continued and equitably implemented. Consider this: If there had been no tobacco control in 2011, previous studies estimated that each person would have smoked 5 times more cigarettes that year on average.
This study’s findings show the impact of past tobacco control measures and also underscore the persistence of deaths that could have been prevented with stronger tobacco control.
Reducing smoking through tobacco control has saved millions of lives and can save millions more in the future. But we need a stronger commitment to increased and sustained funding for evidence-based tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the local, state, and federal levels. We need that joint commitment to help further reduce smoking and substantially increase the progress against smoking-related deaths.”
“One effective way to save even more lives,” Islami adds, “is to design tobacco control programs targeted to groups that have a higher risk of smoking, such as people of lower socioeconomic status.” For example, individuals with only a high school diploma or even less education are 5 times more likely to smoke and die from lung cancer compared with individuals with a college degree.
Variation in Tobacco Control by State
There is wide variation in how effectively each state implements evidence-based tobacco-control policies and strategies to reduce cigarette smoking.
For instance, the strongest evidence-based tobacco-control policy in the US is increasing the price of cigarettes through state-controlled excise taxes. Yet, that tax is less than $2.00 a pack in 27 states, including many in the South and Midwest.
There is also a lot of state variation about the use of these other effective measures to reduce cigarette smoking:
- Access to barrier-free, culturally competent programs to help people stop smoking (smoking cessation programs)
- Marketing bans like not allowing promotional discounts, tobacco-industry sponsored events, and the appearance of tobacco products in television or in films
- Media campaigns including public service announcements to educate about the dangers of smoking and benefits of quitting targeted to specific audiences
- Smoke-free laws, such as not smoking in restaurants with bars, have been proven to help people quit smoking and prevent people, especially youth, from ever starting