For the first time since 1985, fewer than one in five New Yorkers say they are smokers. Nation-wide, about 22 percent of adults smoke regularly. Last year in New York, the rate of adult smokers dipped to about 17 percent.

A new study in the American Journal of Public Health, examines the causes and effects of the decline in smoking in New York City.

The smoking ban in restaurants and bars may have grabbed the most headlines, but according to survey respondents, it was the stiff hike in local cigarette taxes that led the greatest number of people to quit.

Now city residents are buying more and cheaper cigarettes elsewhere -- in New York state and beyond. Local health officials say it will take broader and higher tobacco taxes to continue lowering the smoking rate.