health
Current smoking (adults)
Why this matters
Current smoking in adults measures the share of adults who currently smoke cigarettes. On this platform these are modeled estimates that blend survey and population data, so they are best read as the level in each year, not as year-to-year change (the CDC does not support using them as a trend).
Cigarette smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death in the U.S., raising the risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, and lung disease. Smoking has fallen for decades but concentrates among lower-income residents and some other groups, widening long-run health gaps.
High rates point to where tobacco prevention, quit support, and smoke-free housing can help most. Like other health behaviors, this reflects exposure, stress, and access to cessation help, not character.
About the Charlotte region
This explorer covers the 14-county, two-state Charlotte region (11 North Carolina and 3 South Carolina counties). Many of these indicators connect to a defining regional story: a landmark Harvard study ranked Charlotte last, 50th of the 50 largest U.S. metros for economic mobility (a child raised in the poorest fifth had about a 4.4% chance of reaching the top fifth), a finding that launched the region's Leading on Opportunity agenda. Updated 2024 data show Charlotte has since climbed to 38th.
Opportunity here is also unevenly mapped. An affluent “wedge” fanning southeast from uptown holds a large majority of the city's wealth on under a quarter of its land, while a ”crescent” to the north, west, and east carries higher poverty, a legacy of redlining, exclusionary zoning, and highway routing that recurs across the race, income, health, tree-canopy, and school maps in this tool. No single indicator is good or bad on its own; together they describe how the region sorted opportunity.
Companion resources: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer · UNC Charlotte Urban Institute · Opportunity Atlas · Methods & sources
Learn more
- CDC PLACES — Health Risk Behaviors measure definitions cdc.gov
Official definition of the current-smoking measure and how it is estimated.
- CDC — About PLACES cdc.gov
Explains the model-based small-area method behind the local estimates.
- Mecklenburg Community Health Assessment health.mecknc.gov
Local public-health data and neighborhood health disparities for Mecklenburg County.
- Charlotte-Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer ui.charlotte.edu
Mecklenburg County’s neighborhood indicator system — 462 Neighborhood Profile Areas (a City of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, and UNC Charlotte Urban Institute partnership).
About the data
Model-based small-area estimates from the CDC PLACES project (2018–2023), which uses BRFSS survey data and multilevel regression & poststratification to estimate adult prevalence for every Census tract. Each estimate has a confidence interval; values with high uncertainty are flagged.
Source: CDC PLACES (model-based small-area estimates).