Objectives: The changing landscape of tobacco including the introduction of new products such as smokeless tobaccos and electronic delivery devices has highlighted the need for continued surveillance of tobacco use.
Methods: Minnesota has conducted an in-depth surveillance of adult tobacco use since 1999. For the fifth in the series, conducted in 2014, 9304 telephone interviews were completed.
Results: The 2014 prevalence of cigarette smoking (14.4%) continues a downward trend that remains lower than the national smoking prevalence (17.3%). Among all Minnesota adults, use prevalence of other tobacco products was as follows: e-cigarettes 5.9%, all smokeless tobaccos 3.6%, cigars 3.0%, water pipe 1.4%, and regular pipe 0.7%. Among individuals who have never smoked cigarettes, smokeless tobacco was the most common product used (2.0%), nearly twice the prevalence of e-cigarette use (1.2%). Former smokers were equally likely to use smokeless tobacco (4.9%) or e-cigarettes (4.8%). Among smokers, 27.3% reported current use of e-cigarettes.
Conclusion: In the past 15 years, cigarette smoking prevalence in Minnesota has dropped by an average of 0.51 percentage points annually, and prevalence could drop to less than 5% by 2034.