WASHINGTON – Tobacco control efforts are having a major impact on Americans’ health, suggests a new analysis of lung-cancer data.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported last week that the rate of new lung cancer cases decreased among men and women in the United States from 2005 to 2009.

Lung cancer incidence decreased among men in all U.S. Census regions and 23 states, and decreased among women in the South and West and seven states. Rates were stable in all other states. These declines reflect the successes of past tobacco prevention and control efforts.

The study suggests that continued attention to tobacco prevention and control strategies are needed to achieve further reductions in smoking prevalence among both men and women of all ages to reduce subsequent lung cancer in the United States. The CDC maintains that proven strategies for reducing tobacco use are increased tobacco prices, smoke-free laws, restrictions on tobacco advertising and promotion, and “hard-hitting mass media and community engagement” campaigns.

“These dramatic declines in the number of young adults with lung cancer show that tobacco prevention and control programs work — when they are applied,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden in a statement.

“While it is encouraging that lung cancer incidence rates are dropping in the United States, one preventable cancer is one too many,” Frieden said. “Implementation of tobacco control strategies is needed to reduce smoking prevalence and the lung cancer it causes among men and women.”