Since doctors revealed the damage smoking causes to health 50 years ago, the proportion of people who smoke decreased significantly.
Currently in the U.S., about 19% of adults smoke, compared to about 42% in 1965. At the same time smoking has become less popular in other countries like Canada, Mexico and Iceland.
Unfortunately this is not the case in Greece. According to research conducted at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the percentage of smokers remain high. Our country along with Bulgaria and Austria presented a significant increase of smokers, men and women, over the last 30 years.
Research data shows that women in Greece smoke more than the male population. Greece has a higher rate of female smokers with 34.7%. After Greece, the highest percentages of female smokers are recorded in Bulgaria (31.5%), Kiribati (31.3%), Austria (28.3%), France (27.7%) and FYROM (26.7%).
This research also demonstrated, that even though the proportion of the world’s population that smokes has decreased, the absolute number of daily smokers has risen despite all the public health campaigns against tobacco use.
According to recent data, smoking is responsible for 5.7 million deaths annually, not including the health effects of passive smoking.
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