AsianScientist (Jun. 26, 2011) – Chinese researchers have published a summary of a large-scale assessment of smoking patterns in China in The New England Journal of Medicine this week.
In a Letter to the Editor, Qiang Li of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China and colleagues highlighted the results of the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) in China, which assessed smoking prevalence and patterns among ‘adults’ 15 years of age or older.
The study surveyed 13,354 Chinese participants from December 2009 to March 2010 in collaboration with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization.
In 2010, an estimated 301 million individuals were current smokers, representing approximately 28.1 percent of adults in China. 52.9 percent of men smoked whereas only 2.4 percent of women were current smokers.
The prevalence of smoking was highest among individuals 45 to 64 years of age (33.6 percent) and lowest for those between 15 and 24 years of age (17.9 percent). For all current smokers, 85.6 percent smoked daily and averaged approximately 14.2 cigarettes per day.
Among men, machine operators and agricultural workers were shown to display the highest prevalence of smoking (67.0 percent and 60.4 percent, respectively), whereas medical personnel and teaching staff showed the lowest prevalence (40.4 percent and 36.5 percent, respectively).
Smoking rates also tended to increase from east to west, with overall prevalence rates of 26.2 percent in Eastern China, 28.1 percent in Central China, and 30.4 percent in Western China. Smoking rates were also higher among rural residents (29.8 percent) when compared to urban residents (26.1 percent).
Highlighting that China is currently “the largest consumer of tobacco in the world,” the authors warn in the letter that if the current high smoking prevalence persists in China, “China will suffer from a heavy disease burden and incur serious socioeconomic losses in the 21st century”.
According to the World Health Organization website, GATS was launched in February 2007 in 16 low- and middle-income countries, including China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Bangladesh, where more than half of the world’s smokers live. The program is a part of the ongoing Global Tobacco Surveillance System to help country policy makers collect data on adult tobacco use and aid in the implementation of tobacco control programs.
Support for the GATS is provided by the Bloomberg Global Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
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Source: The New England Journal of Medicine, World Health Organization.
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