Study : Smoking causes one in 10 deaths worldwide

The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) report was published in April 2017 in medical journal The Lancet.

The report indicates that smoking caused one in ten deaths worldwide in 2015. It also stated that half of these deaths occurred in just four countries, which are China, India, the United States and Russia.

Key highlights of the Global Burden of Disease report

• The 10 countries with the largest number of smokers in 2015 were China, India, Indonesia, U.S., Russia, Bangladesh, Japan, Brazil, Germany and the Philippines.

• In 2015, about 6.4 million deaths worldwide were caused by smoking and 52.2 per cent of them took place in China, India, U.S. and Russia.

• China, India, and Indonesia, the three leading countries with male smokers, accounted for 51.4 per cent of the world’s male smokers in 2015.

• India holds 11.2 per cent of the world’s total smokers.

• Deaths attributable to smoking increased by 4.7 per cent in 2015 from the figures in 1990.

• Smoking was rated as a bigger burden on health, moving from the third to the second highest cause of disability.

• The U.S., China and India, the leading three countries in total number of female smokers, accounted for 27.3 per cent of the world’s female smokers.

• The study also warns that the war against tobacco is far from won. The report goes on to argue that despite implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2005, policy makers need to make renewed and sustained efforts to tackle it.

• Population growth has led to an increase in the overall number of smokers from 870.4 million in 1990 to 933.1 million in 2015.

• India, Pakistan and Panama are the three countries that have implemented a large number of tobacco control policies over the last ten years.

• The FCTC is necessary and vital for creating policy environment for more effective tobacco control worldwide but is not enough to fully address each country’s tobacco-control needs.