Find out your risk from smoking

Australian smoking prevalence and mortality rates, 2007. Presentation slides.

Latest Australian Instititute of Health & Welfare estimate of deaths from smoking in Australia for 2003: 15,511 .. second only to hypertension as leading cause of death. 204,788 Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYS) from smoking (#1) cause.

How much tar is there in 400 cigarettes? (a 14/day smoker smokes 5,113 a year & 204,540 in 40 years)

Australian and New Zealand Atlas of Avoidable Mortality (Sep 2006)
A report produced by the Public Health Information Development Unit, Australia
and the New Zealand Ministry of Health, claiming that over 60% of all deaths in Australia (ages 0-74) are avoidable. "The highest rates of avoidable mortality in the major condition groups were for cancers, responsible for 32.8% of avoidable mortality and cardiovascular diseases (31.6% of avoidable mortality). Together, these two major condition groups were responsible for over 60% of avoidable mortality at ages 0 to 74 years."

AIHW Cancer incidence projections for Australia 2002-2011 (Aug 2005)
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report that includes data on cancers attributed to smoking and alcohol consumption. The incidence of smoking-related cancers is projected to decrease for men but increase for women, however, at a rate that becomes slower towards the end of the projection period.

AIHW Chronic Diseases and Associated Risk Factors in Australia, 2006 (Nov 2006)
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has updated the 2001 edition, providing data on the patterns of disease across the age groups, the prevalence of risk factors and their trends, the effects of chronic diseases on health services in Australia, and the differences in chronic diseases and their risk factors across geographical areas, socioeconomic status and Indigenous status. Includes a useful "snapshot of chronic diseases". Tobacco smoking as a risk factor: "Compared with major cities, regional areas of Australia experience higher prevalence of many of the risk factors for chronic disease, such as smoking (11% higher)...Compared with areas of high socioeconomic status, the least advantaged areas of Australia have higher levels of smoking...Compared with other Australians,Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons have higher prevalence of smoking..."

AIHW Health Inequalities in Australia (published Mar 2006)
This joint publication by the AIHW and the Queensland University of Technology published reviews morbidity, health behaviours, risk factors and health services use for the periods 1989-90, 1995 and 2001. It looks at where people live, their income, education and occupation, and finds that being disadvantaged puts people at much higher risk for health problems. Persons aged 15-24 years from disadvantaged areas were more likely to engage in harmful health-related behaviours, including smoking. Persons aged 25-64 years from disadvantaged areas were more likely to report being a regular smoker. Click here to review the whole report.

AIHW Mortality Over the Twentieth Century in Australia (Apr 2006)
This Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report presents trends and patterns in major causes of death from 1907 to 2000. Published in April 2006 as part of the Mortality Surveillance Series. Examine Chapter 4 'Broad causes of mortality' and Chapter 5 'Specific causes of mortality' for details about cancer and specifically, lung cancer.

AIHW Smoking and Pregnancy (August 2006)
Report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) National Perinatal Statistics Unit. Presents data on pregnancy and births according to the mother's smoking status during pregnancy for the period 2001 to 2003, using the National Perinatal Data Collection (NPDC). Smoking during pregnancy is associated with poorer birth outcomes.

BMA Smoking & Reproductive Life
Published by the British Medical Association (BMA) in February 2004, the report "Smoking & Reproductive Life: the impact of smoking on sexual, reproductive & child health" states that smoking damages sexual and reproductive health in both men and women.

BMJ 50 Year British Doctor Study
The BMJ have made a preprint available for the results of a study involving 34439 male British doctors. The study is by Richard Doll, Richard Peto, Jillian Boreham and Isabelle Sutherland and is entitled "Mortality in relation to smoking: 50 years' observations on male British doctors". Smoking habits data were obtained in 1951 and cause specific mortality was monitored periodically for 50 years.

Calculating Tobacco-related Mortality
A widely recognised method of calculating tobacco-related mortality has been developed by Richard Peto et al. and is described in the following publications:

Peto R, Lopez AD, Boreham J, Thun M and Heath Jr C. Mortality from tobacco in developed countries: indirect estimation from national vital statistics. Lancet 1992; 339:1268-78.

Peto R, Lopez AD, Boreham J, Thun M and Heath Jr C. Mortality from Smoking in Developed Countries 1950-2000. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994.

Global Tobacco Surveillance System (GTSS)
The World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA) began development of the Global Tobacco Surveillance System (GTSS) in 1999. GTSS includes both school-based and household-based surveys. The purpose of the GTSS is to enhance countries' capacity to monitor tobacco use, guide national tobacco prevention, and control programs, and facilitate comparison of tobacco-related data at the national, regional, and global levels.

Deaths from Smoking.net
Published by the International Union Against Cancer (UICC) (Geneva: Switzerland, 2006), this site summarises the hazards of smoking and the benefits of stopping. It provides data for 40 developed countries, including Australia.

Famous Dead Smokers
The American Lung Association of Kansas provides a list of celebrities who died of smoking related illnesses. Click here and here for other compilations of famous people who have died from smoking related diseases. Click here to go to the Tobacco Victims website, a memorial dedicated to the 5 million people who die every year because of tobacco consumption or passive smoking.

The Health Consequences of Smoking - Database
The database includes abstracts of more than 1,600 key articles cited in the 2004 Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking. Developed in collaboration with the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Office on Smoking and Health. Click here for links related to the launch of the 2004 Health Consequences of Smoking Report by the US Surgeon General, Vice Admiral Richard H. Carmona on 27 May 2004.

United States DHHS 10th Report on Carcinogens
The US Department of Health and Human Services 10th Report on Carcinogens prepared by the National Toxicology Program at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) includes information on tobacco related exposures. Click here to view the table of contents for the entire report.

United States NCI Smoking Risk Information
A tool made available by the US National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences that provides individualised smoking risk information. A current smoker, past smoker, or friend of a smoker enters a specific smoking profile (gender, current age, age when smoking started, and cigarettes per day). A graph is then created that shows the future risk of either lung cancer mortality or all-cause mortality and compares this to the risk of a nonsmoker.

United States Surgeon General Reports (New report published Jun 2006)
The National Library of Medicine has digitised and made available over the World Wide Web all the Reports of the US Public Health Service Surgeon General. In addition to the Surgeon General Reports, there are articles, white papers, brochures, pamphlets, photographic images and slides of historic figures. In June 2006, a new report was released The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke. The 2006 report finds that secondhand smoke exposure can cause heart disease and lung cancer in nonsmoking adults and is a known cause of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), respiratory problems, ear infections, and asthma attacks in infants and children. Click here for links related to the launch of the 2004 Health Consequences of Smoking Report by the US Surgeon General, Vice Admiral Richard H. Carmona on 27 May 2004. The US National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion provides access to the 2004 Surgeon General's Report chapter by chapter.

WHO Projections of Mortality and Burden of Disease to 2030 (Nov 2006)
The World Health Organization has revised global and regional projections of mortality and burden of disease by cause. The paper by Mathers and Loncar (Mathers CD, Loncar D. Projections of global mortality and burden of disease from 2002 to 2030. PLoS Med 2006;3(11-e442):2011-2030) provides projections for tobacco attributable deaths. Projects that the total "tobacco-attributable deaths will rise from 5.4 million in 2005 to 6.4 million in 2015 and 8.3 million in 2030. Projected deaths for 2030 range from 7.4 million in the optimistic scenario to 9.7 million in the pessimistic scenario. Tobacco-attributable deaths are projected to decline by 9% between 2002 and 2030 in high-income countries, but to double from 3.4 million to 6.8 million in low- and middleincome".

WHO TFI Health Impact
Global information about the burden of tobacco-related disease from the World Health Organization's Tobacco Free Initiative.

Smoking-caused fires. A major report from the USA June 2005.