The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

Sex Differences in Health: Evidence and Explanations 361

Prevalence Among Adolescents and Chil-

dren. Smoking is particularly important to

study among children and adolescents. First,

a majority of smokers begin to smoke during

adolescence or early adulthood (Substance

Abuse and Mental Health Services Adminis-

tration, 2010). By twelfth grade, 44% of youth

have tried cigarettes. Second, some evidence

suggests that smoking slows lung development

among adolescents (Gold et al., 1996). These

effects are stronger among females than males.

Among high school students in 2009,

19% of girls and 20% of boys reported that

they currently smoked, which was defined

as having smoked one or more cigarettes in

the past 30 days. As shown in Figure 10.4, the

rate of smoking increased among children

in the early 1990s, decreased since 1997, and

now appears to have leveled off. In the 1990s,

smoking among Black males increased dra-

matically, but those rates have decreased

substantially in recent years. Black males and

movement and came to be associated with

women’s fight for equality. Thus, in the 1960s

and 1970s, more women than men started

smoking, and more men than women began

to quit smoking. Today, men still have higher

quit rates than women. The sex difference in

smoking has decreased over time.

Along with the sex difference in smok-

ing patterns, the sex difference in lung can-

cer shifted. In 1950, the male–female ratio

of lung cancer was 4.6; in 1960, it was 6.7;

in 1990, it was 2.3; and in 2009, it was es-

timated to be 1.2 (American Cancer Soci-

ety, 2009). Since the 1980s, the incidence of

lung cancer has declined among men but

increased among women. Only recently

has the rate in women started to level off.

Because lung cancer develops over the two

to three decades following smoking, the

changes in women’s and men’s rates of lung

cancer can be directly tied to the changes in

their rates of smoking.

FIGURE 10.3 Percentages of adults in the United States who report they

currently smoke. In all ethnic groups, more men than women smoke.

Source: Adapted from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2009a).

Percentage

Current Smoking

30

35

40

25

20

15

10

5

(^0) White Black Hispanic American
Indian/Alaska
Native
Asian
Male
Female
45
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