North American Public Opinion on Health and Smoking

Public opinion regarding smoking and health has been of interest to polling companies since the 1940s – virtually since the beginning of modern-day public opinion polling. In this manuscript we document the rate of change in the public’s awareness and beliefs about smoking and health in North America (the United States and Canada). We report on four broad categories of opinions – public awareness of reports that smoking has been linked to lung cancer, belief that smoking is harmful to health and a cause of lung cancer, belief that smoking is a cause of diseases other than lung cancer, and belief about the health hazards of second-hand smoke.