The number of young adult smokers in Scotland has risen in the last three years, data released yesterday has found.
Louise Hosie
The number of young adult smokers in Scotland has risen in the last three years, data released yesterday has found.
A report by NHS Health Scotland and the Scottish Public Health Observatory placed smoking rates among 16-to-24-year-olds at 30% in 2007, compared with 25% in 2004. The analysis, based on figures from the Scottish Household Survey, found the smoking rates of those aged 16-24 had previously decreased from 31% to 25% between 1999 and 2004.
This is despite the introduction in 2006 of the ban on smoking in public places. Health experts said "sustained action" would be needed if the Scottish Government's target of reducing the smoking rate of young adults to 22.9% by 2012 was to be met.
Dr David Gordon, of NHS Health Scotland, said: "Smoking rates have fluctuated without showing any sustained trend between 1999 and 2007. Meeting the 2012 target will require sustained and radical population-wide action to discourage take-up and promote smoking cessation."
He added that the number of 15-year-olds starting smoking had reduced, as had the rates for adults over 24.
"Our conclusion with the increase in the 16-to-24-year-olds is that tobacco companies have been successful with a whole range of product placements so smoking is something which some young adults associate with a transition into adulthood," said Dr Gordon.
Public Health Minister Shona Robison said: "We are committed to doing all we can to reduce smoking rates in Scotland, both by encouraging more smokers to quit and discouraging young people from starting in the first place.
"Significant progress has been made in recent years to shift cultural attitudes to smoking, but this report clearly demonstrates that firm action needs to continue if we are to succeed in our desire to make Scotland smoke-free."
"In our smoking prevention action plan, published in May, we signalled our intention - among a range of measures aimed at preventing smoking among children and young people - to remove cigarettes from open display in shops.
"We are currently taking this forward in consultation with the industry and our proposals will be included in the health bill to be introduced next year."
In Australia, lung cancer has overtaken breast cancer as the biggest killer of women with cancer. More than 50 Australian women lost their battle with lung cancer every week in 2005 and the number will rise to almost 65 female deaths a week in 2010, said a report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
As society changed in the 1970s and 1980s and women enjoyed the same freedoms as men, they took up cigarettes at a growing rate, while an anti-smoking message began to hit home for men and their smoking rate fell, said the report.
As a result, lung cancer rates are expected to grow by 0.4% a year until 2010 for women and fall by 1.1% for men, it said. "In the past the tobacco industry targeted female smokers with advertising suggesting that smoking is glamorous or fashionable," said Kylie Lindorff, policy manager at the government's anti-smoking unit Quit.
"Unfortunately, these active campaigns to recruit female smokers are now translating into higher lung cancer deaths."
Breast cancer was the most common form of the disease for women, accounting for about one-quarter of diagnoses, but the death rate from breast cancer has fallen because of a national breast screening programme.
