The number of smokers has gone down nearly 20 percent in the past decade and dropped a full percentage point in the last year alone, federal health officials said on Thursday.
Anti-smoking campaigns, better insurance coverage to help people quit and tougher laws making it harder to smoke in places have helped but officials are not sure of the exact reason, according to NBC News.
People covered by Medicaid and those not covered by health insurance are far more likely to smoke than people with good health insurance.
"The percentage of U.S. adults who smoke cigarettes declined from 20.9 percent in 2005 to 16.8 percent in 2014," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention team wrote in their report.
