Cancer rates are higher in South Jersey than elsewhere in the state

Living in South Jersey can be hazardous to your health: even more so if you’re a smoker.

According to a story on The Press of Atlantic City, health statistics have shown that “South Jersey has a higher prevalence of smoking than the rest of New Jersey.” And a study from the American Cancer Society has found a “large disparity between cancer rates in northern and southern New Jersey, particularly in lung cancer.”

 

This statistic is directly related to the smoking rate, which is higher in South Jersey. The overall percentage of Garden State smokers is about 14 percent, which is lower than the national rate of 17 percent.

Researchers believe that “North Jersey residents benefit from the media and aggressive anti-smoking campaigns coming out of New York City — where tobacco use is about 13 percent — while South Jersey residents are more influenced by Delaware and Pennsylvania, both of which have higher incidence of tobacco use, at 17 and 18 percent respectively in 2010, according to the CDC.”