India had the second highest number of tobacco smokers aged 15-24 in 2019 (nearly 2 crore), and witnessed the highest increase of male smokers in this age group since 1990.
Ahead of World No Tobacco Day (May 31), the Global Burden of Disease collaboration has published three new studies in The Lancet and The Lancet Public Health journals. They use data from 3,625 nationally representative surveys in 204 countries.
Globally, the number of smokers increased to 1.1 billion in 2019, with tobacco smoking causing 7.7 million deaths — including 1 in 5 deaths in males worldwide. Among new smokers, 89% become addicted by age 25.
Prevalence
The 10 countries with the largest number of tobacco smokers in 2019, together comprising nearly two-thirds of the global tobacco smoking population, are China, India, Indonesia, the USA, Russia, Bangladesh, Japan, Turkey, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
In the 15-24 age group, China (26.5 million), India (19.8 million), and Indonesia (9.91 million) had the largest numbers of tobacco smokers in 2019. Globally, there were 155 million smokers in this age group.
India (4.67 million), Egypt (1.24 million) and Indonesia (1.22 million) had the largest absolute increases in the number of male smokers aged 15-24. The largest increases in female smokers aged 15-24 were in Turkey (4.6 lakh) Jordan (1.1 lakh) and Zambia (1.1 lakh).
“In countries like India, there has been largest absolute increase in number of young male smokers,” said Professor Monika Arora, Director of Health Promotion Division at Public Health Foundation of India, and one of the study authors.
“Reducing prevalence in any country requires two-pronged strategy. First is to step up cessation services to help current users quit, but the second approach has to focus on preventing initiation among adolescents and youth,” Dr Arora said. “India has had excellent evidence on effectiveness of school health interventions in reducing tobacco use among adolescents, through well conducted and published interventions like Project MYTRI (Mobilising Youth for Tobacco Related Initiatives in India). India has already enforced policies in favour of protecting youth from new emerging tobacco and nicotine products by banning gutkha/smokeless tobacco in some states and e-cigarettes. India can consider adopting a vision for Tobacco Endgame and Tobacco Free Future Generations to protect the youth of the country from this growing tobacco epidemic,” she said.
Deaths
In 2019, smoking was associated with 1.7 million deaths from ischaemic heart disease, 1.6 million deaths from COPD, 1.3 million deaths from tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer, and nearly 1 million deaths from stroke. Previous studies have shown that smokers have an average life expectancy ten years lower than never-smokers.
Approximately 87% of deaths attributable to smoking occurred among current smokers. Only 6% of deaths attributable to smoking tobacco use occurred among individuals who had quit smoking at least 15 years previously, highlighting the health benefits of cessation.