Smoking Rate Highest in Kentucky, Lowest in Utah

Gallup took measurements of the percentage of smokers across all 50 states during 2013 to come up with these results.

The high rate of smoking often came in geographic targets. Also adjacent to Kentucky, the rate of smokers in Tennessee was 26.3% — ranked among the top 10 states. Smoking rates were also high in Louisiana (24.1%) and neighboring Mississippi (27.0%). The rate was high in Michigan (23.2%), as well as bordering Indiana (24.7%) and Ohio (25.0%). The other top 10 states were Oklahoma (25.2%) and Missouri (24.7%), which also share a border.

Two states that border Utah were in the bottom 10 in terms of smoking rates — Arizona (17.5%) and Colorado (17.4%). The balance of the states in the bottom 10 included California (15%.0), Minnesota (15.8%), Massachusetts (16.3%), New Jersey (16.9%), Maryland (17%.0), Washington (17%.0) and Rhode Island (17.1%).

Commenting on the research, Gallup analysts wrote:

Utah’s low smoking rate is due in large part to the religious composition of its residents. Six in 10 Utah residents identify themselves as Mormon, and in 2013 just 5% of Mormons living in Utah smoked, while smoking among the next three most represented groups in Utah — those with no religious identity, Protestants, and Catholics — were at or above national smoking averages for each group.

The other important point the research group made was:

Nine of the 10 states with the lowest smoking rates have outright bans on smoking in all three of these settings, with California allowing for ventilated rooms.

And:

Bans are significantly less common in the 10 states with the highest smoking rates. Kentucky, West Virginia, and Mississippi — the states with the three highest smoking rates — do not have statewide bans in any of the three settings.

Nationwide, the rate of smoking has plunged since World War II:

Since Gallup began asking Americans whether they smoke or not in 1944, the percentage of smokers has declined by more than half. Still, about one in five Americans in 2013 said they smoke.

Whatever vices Americans do have, they run less and less toward the use of tobacco.

Methodology: Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index survey Jan. 2 to Dec. 29, 2013, with a random sample of 178,067 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.