1900s Smoking History

Although tobacco consumption has decreased substantially since the 1900s, the effects of its history still remain. While smoking is less prevalent and consumers are more aware of its negative effects, individuals who were actively submersed in the smoking culture of the early 20th century continue to feel the affects of its health impairments1. Moreover, the health of past smokers need to be studied and evaluated in order to assess how to adequately improve their quality of life and health status. Therefore, the purpose of our study is to explore the effects of smoking history on self-reported health status. We aim to research how smoking history affects how individuals view their current state of health. By doing so, we may be …show more content…
Multiple decades’ worth of investigation and examination prove that smoking tobacco is inevitably toxic to one’s body2. Although this is now common knowledge, the facts pertaining to the effects of tobacco were not always so clear and well-known. During the early 20th century, individuals living in the United States not only consumed cigarettes, but fully embraced the product and embedded the habit of smoking into their everyday lives. The consumption of cigarettes began rapidly expanding during 1910 and continued to grow until 1990, reaching its peak in the 1960s. These increases were the result of revolutionary methods of tobacco promotion, the immense influence of the tobacco industry on politics, and the World Wars’ policies regarding the distribution of free cigarettes to allied troops. However, epidemiologic studies conducted during the late 1940s and early 1950s triggered concern, connecting smoking tobacco to diseases such as lung cancer3. On January 11, 1964, Luther Terry, the Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service, released the first report of the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health, noting that smoking was in fact detrimental to smokers’ health. Nearing the end of the 20th century, smoking rates decreased due to the rapidly increasing knowledge of the health effects associated with …show more content…
Smoking still accounts for approximately 480,000 deaths every year in the United States, alongside roughly $300 billion in healthcare costs and lost productivity8. If this issue is addressed, we may be able to decrease the death rate caused by smoking as well as the elevated costs faced by our healthcare system. There is a need to better understand the smoking population in order to identify which types of policies need to be made in order for the best mode of treatment to be created and