FIGURE 5-3 Smoking rates for high school seniors in California and the United States excluding California, 1991 to 1999 Monitoring the Future.

SOURCE: (Farrelly et al. 2003).

a greater percent change in the prevalence of current adult smokers than did the U.S. median.

In its last independent evaluation of the MTCP, Abt Associates Inc. similarly assessed the program by comparing state and national data. Controlling for demographic characteristics and comparing current smoking prevalence rates in Massachusetts with those in 41 states without comprehensive tobacco control programs, Abt Associates found that adult smoking prevalence rates declined more rapidly in Massachusetts than in the comparison states. According to the Abt analysis, the adjusted prevalence rate in Massachusetts declined between 1990 and 2000, from 22.7 percent to 20.5 percent (an annual rate of 0.9 percent), whereas the adjusted prevalence rate in the comparison states declined from 22.0 percent to 21.7 percent (an annual rate of 0.4 percent). Consequently, Abt Associates concluded (like Siegel and colleagues in the case of California) that the decline in the adult smoking prevalence rate in Massachusetts could be attributed to the existence of the MTCP and not to national trends or demographic changes. Abt also noted that Massachusetts experienced a drop (40 percent) in per-capita cigarette consumption from 1992 to 2001, two times greater than the drop (20 percent) experienced in the rest of the country, excluding California. Furthermore, the decline in youth smoking prevalence in Massachusetts was found to be greater than that in the rest of the United States (Hamilton et al. 2003). The results of a similar analysis that reviewed data obtained through 1999 were published in 2002 (Weintraub and Hamilton 2002).