Smoking and lung cancer mortality rate trends in men and women, United States

“Lung cancer mortality rates rose from three to four per 100,000 people in 1930 to 91 per 100,000 men in 1990 and 42 per 100,000 women in 2002 before declining by 58% to 38 per 100,000 in men and by 36% to 27 per 100,000 in women in 2020. Reductions in mortality began several decades after the release of the first US Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health in 1964 that motivated people to quit in large numbers. The pace of the mortality decline has closely mirrored that for incidence until the most recent 5‐year period, when the decrease in mortality accelerated, in part because of recent advances in treatment and early detection. From 2016 to 2020, the lung cancer death rate declined by 4%–5% versus 1%–3% per year during 2015–2019 for incidence among both men and women.”