More people smoke worldwide today than in 1980, as population growth surges and cigarettes gain popularity in countries such as China, India and Russia, researchers said on Tuesday.
For instance, China boasted nearly 100 million more smokers in 2012 than it had three decades ago, even though its smoking rate fell from 30 percent to 24 percent in that span, the findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association said.
The rise in the number of smokers comes despite overall declines in the smoking rate in recent decades, as many people have realized the health dangers of tobacco, the report said.
The data was published as part of a series of tobacco-related articles to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first US surgeon general’s report on the risks of smoking.
“Since we know that half of all smokers will eventually be killed by tobacco, greater numbers of smokers will mean a massive increase in premature deaths in our lifetime,” co-author Alan Lopez of the University of Melbourne said.
The study, led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, measured data from 187 countries.
It found that the global smoking rate among men was 41 percent in 1980, but has since declined to an average of 31 percent.
Among women, the estimated prevalence of daily tobacco smoking was 10.6 percent in 1980, and by 2012 that had fallen to 6.2 percent.
The most rapid decrease began in the mid-1990s, but smoking has actually risen again among men since 2010, the study said.
“This deceleration in the global trend was in part due to increases in the number of smokers since 2006 in several large countries including Bangladesh, China, Indonesia and Russia,” the study said.
China had 182 million smokers in 1980, and nearly 282 million in 2012, it said.
India gained 35 million smokers — bringing its total to 110 million — even though the smoking rate fell from 19 percent to 13 percent of the population.
Russia, where about one-third of people smoke, has added 1 million smokers since 1980.
Globally, the number of smokers has climbed from 721 million in 1980 to 967 million in 2012.
The number of cigarettes smoked annually has also risen 26 percent over the past three decades.
“The greatest health risks are likely to occur in countries with high prevalence and high consumption,” including China, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, South Korea, the Philippines, Uruguay, Switzerland and Russia, the study said.
The highest smoking rates among men in 2012 were in Timor-Leste (61 percent) and Indonesia (57 percent), followed by Armenia (51.5 percent), Russia (51 percent) and Cyprus (48 percent).
Top countries for women smokers were Greece (34.7 percent) and Bulgaria (31.5 percent).
A larger proportion of women in France smoked in 2012 (28 percent) than 1980 (19 percent), while the rate for men went the opposite direction, declining from 42 percent to 34 percent.
In all, France had 14 million smokers in 2012, 2 million more people than in 1980.
The study also measured how many cigarettes on average were consumed per smoker each day in 2012, and found Mauritania was the highest with 41, or two packs a day.
Saudi Arabia’s smokers averaged 35 cigarettes per day, and Taiwan’s 32.
“As tobacco remains a threat to the health of the world’s population, intensified efforts to control its use are needed,” the study said.
The research also examined where the biggest gains against smoking have been made since 1980, particularly in countries where more than one in five people smoked.
Iceland, Mexico and Canada had the most significant declines (3 percent), followed by Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
The US, New Zealand, Australia and Britain rounded out the top 10 for the drop in smoking rates.
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