More than 1 million New Yorkers are smoking, according to data released Monday, marking in increase in tobacco use in the city that pioneered a number of anti-smoking initiatives that were emulated nationally, according to The Associated Press.
Sixteen percent of adult New Yorkers smoked in 2013, up from 14 percent in 2010, which was the city's lowest recorded rate, according to the findings released by New York City's Department of Health, the AP reported.
The rise in 2013, which is the most recent data available, is striking since it comes as smoking rates fall across the country, according to the AP. The national average, 18 percent, is still higher than it is in New York.
The findings were culled from answers to the department's annual health survey of thousands of city residents, the AP reported.
"We've had a plateau in the smoking rate for a couple of years, but now it is a statistically significant increase," said Dr. Mary Bassett, the city's health commissioner, according to the AP. "We now know the rise is real and we aim to do something about it."
Bassett believes that city budget cutbacks caused by the economic downturn of the past six years is the largest culprit for the spike, the AP reported.
"The city used a whole host of tools to drive down smoking," said Bassett, who was appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio after he took office in January, "but we know we haven't been able to maintain the foot on the gas in the same way," according to the AP.
Under Michael Bloomberg, who served 12 years as mayor beginning in 2002, New York radically reshaped its plans to curb smoking among its residents, the AP reported. Bloomberg's signature health initiative was to bar smoking in public parks and most other public places, including bars and restaurants, across the nation's largest city.
A pack of cigarettes purchased in New York City is also subject to more taxes than any other municipality in the nation, according to the AP.
