Despite progress in tobacco control efforts, smoking remains a global public health concern with diverse patterns observed across countries. Certain countries stand out for their alarmingly high smoking rates. Nauru takes the lead with a staggering 48.50% of its population engaging in smoking habits.
However, in 2019, China had more than double the number of smokers as India even though just four years later India would overtake China to become the most populous country in the world. In 2019, a total of around 341.3 million people in China smoked compared to 130.7 million in India.
In 2021, an estimated 14.1% of adults (aged 18 years and above) in the UK smoked. By 2023, the estimated number of smokers in the UK is projected to be around 13% of the population or 8 million adults (aged 18 years and above) which is comparable to the US.
Source: Eurostat. The countries that smoke the most in the EU are Bulgaria, with 28.2 per cent of the population consuming tobacco daily, then Turkey (27.3 per cent), Greece (27.2 per cent), Hungary (25.8 per cent) and Latvia (24.9 per cent).
In the UK, 14.6% of men smoked compared with 11.2% of women; this difference has been consistent since 2011. People aged 25 to 34 years had the highest proportion of current smokers in the UK (16.3%); those aged 65 years and over had the lowest (8.3%) in 2022.
Top 40 Countries with Highest Smoking Rates in the World 2023 🌍
Where are the heaviest smokers in the UK?
The highest proportion of current smokers in 2021 was in Scotland at 14.8%, with the lowest in England at 13.0%. Wales and Northern Ireland reported 14.1% and 13.8% current smokers respectively, the ONS said.
Our research indicates three key reasons why rates of smoking in the north of England in particular are relatively high: a working through of historical trends; the availability of illegal tobacco products, and the ultimately key factor – relative levels of disadvantage, deprivation and poverty.
In general, a light smoker is someone who smokes less than 10 cigarettes per day. Someone who smokes a pack a day or more is a heavy smoker. An average smoker falls in between. Sometimes a doctor will use the term pack year to describe how long and how much a person has smoked.
Despite an increase between 2019 and 2020, the overall trend was a decrease of the share of smokers in France in the past two decades: 30 percent of the respondents were daily smokers in 2000, compared to 25.3 percent in 2021.
'” As for the most cigarettes he's ever smoked in a day, Posty admitted that number is about double his daily average. “Probably like 80,” he confessed before adding, “I used to [smoke in my bed] but not really anymore.
By Age. Current cigarette smoking was highest among people aged 25–44 years and 45–64 years. Current cigarette smoking was lowest among people aged 18-24 years.
England, Scotland and Wales all have smokefree ambitions, England and Wales to be smokefree by 2030, Scotland by 2034 (defined as adult smoking rates of 5% or less). Analysis by CRUK shows none are on track to deliver.
Generally, men tend to use all tobacco products at higher rates than women. In 2015, 16.7 percent of adult males and 13.6 percent of adult females smoked cigarettes. Such differences may relate to a combination of physiological (particularly ovarian hormones), cultural, and behavioral factors.
American Indians and Alaska Natives have the highest smoking rate of any racial or ethnic group. A recent study also found American Indian and Alaska Native men and women have a higher percentage of smoking-related deaths from heart disease and stroke than white men and women.
Countries with the highest share of tobacco-related deaths among males in 2019. In 2019, China was the country with the highest share of deaths among males due to tobacco use worldwide. At that time, around 35 percent of all deaths among males in China could be attributed to tobacco use.
While a high percentage of men in Japan have smoked throughout in the postwar years, the rate for women for many years hovered between 10 and 15%, followed there too by a decline in recent years to be floating currently a little below 10%.
Smoking is prohibited in indoor public places and workplaces and on public transportation. Limited exceptions to the smoking ban are provided for designated hotel guest rooms. There are also some limited restrictions on smoking in outdoor public places, such as in playgrounds and at open spaces in health facilities.
The price of cigarettes is substantially different across Europe. As of 2022, the most expensive EU country in which to purchase cigarettes was Ireland, with a pack of 20 cigarettes retailing at 13.43 euros, followed by France at 10.19 euros.
Are e-cigarettes less harmful than regular cigarettes? Yes—but that doesn't mean e-cigarettes are safe. E-cigarette aerosol generally contains fewer toxic chemicals than the deadly mix of 7,000 chemicals in smoke from regular cigarettes. However, e-cigarette aerosol is not harmless.
No. Even one cigarette a week is bad for your health. Each cigarette you smoke exposes you to nicotine and other harmful chemicals and increases your risk for heart disease and cancer. The negative effects of smoking add up over the course of your life.
There are always a few die-hards who smoke a pack a day from age eighteen and live to be ninety. That's because a very few people are physiologically less susceptible to the arterial aging and carcinogenic effects of cigarette smoke than the rest of us.
Gallup data from a recent three-country survey* suggest that about a quarter of U.S. adults (26%) and Canadian adults (24%) smoke cigarettes. Smoking is slightly more prevalent in Great Britain, where 32% of adults reported smoking cigarettes in the past week.
What is the life expectancy of a smoker in the UK?
If you are a long-term smoker, on average, your life expectancy is about 10 years less than a non-smoker. Put another way, in the UK about 8 in 10 non-smokers live past the age of 70, but only about half of long-term smokers live past 70.
As Figure 1 shows, 19.1 percent of adult Americans smoke, as opposed to 34 percent of Germans or Japanese and 27 percent of the French or English. The American smoking rate is 10 percent less than the average among developed nations shown in the figure.
