---
title: "Fewer Americans see cigarette smoking as a major public health problem"
description: "About half of Americans rank cigarette smoking as a serious public health problem."
date: "2014-01-10"
authors:
  - name: "Bruce Drake"
    job_title: "Former Senior Editor"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/bruce-drake/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/01/10/fewer-americans-see-cigarette-smoking-as-a-major-public-health-problem/"
categories:
  - "Health Policy"
  - "Medicine & Health"
---

# Fewer Americans see cigarette smoking as a major public health problem

[![DN_Cigarette_Smoking](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2014/01/DN_Cigarette_Smoking.png)](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2013/11/12/public-agrees-on-obesitys-impact-not-governments-role/)

It’s been 50 years since the U.S. Surgeon General issued a [groundbreaking report](http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/access/NNBBMQ.pdf) on the dangers of smoking. The report opened the way for decades of measures to curb tobacco use —measures that helped save an estimated 8 million lives over that time span, according to a [study published this week](http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1812962) in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

About half (53%) of Americans still see cigarette smoking as an extremely or very serious public health problem, according to a [Pew Research Center survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2013/11/12/public-agrees-on-obesitys-impact-not-governments-role/) conducted last November. But the public now sees it as less of a problem than a number of other public health issues like cancer and obesity, and less of a problem than it did in 2004 when 72% rated it as serious in an ABC News/Time poll.

Asked whether the U.S. is making progress in dealing with cigarette smoking in 2013, 45% said it was, while 39% said things were about the same. Just 13% saw the efforts to deal with smoking as losing ground. By comparison, 35% saw the country losing ground in dealing with mental illness and 34% said the same about the issue of obesity.