The percentage of
Indian men who smoke every day has plunged from 3rd to 5th place over the last three decades, but the
percentage of women smokers has remained unchanged. Considering the country’s
population, India has more women smokers among all the countries except US.
The study was
conducted by Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the
University of Washington. It shows that frequency of smoking among Indian men dropped
from 33.8 per cent in 1980 to 23 per cent in 2012, reported media.
Female smoking
frequency in 2012 was 3.2 per cent, nearly the same as in 1980. This comes to
over 12.1 million women in 2012; the number of male smokers, by compare, was 98
million in that year.
The results were
concluded after the study was done on the basis of on a wide range of data
sources, including in-country assessments, government figures, and World Health
Organisation statistics.
Interestingly, despite
the low percentage of smoking among men in India, yet the rate of deaths from
smoking in India touches million. “Smoking rates remain dangerously high for
men and there is more work to be done to drive these rates lower,” Dr Srinath
Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India was quoted by media
as saying.
Dr A Nandakumar,
Director of National Cancer Registry Programme said, “Annually there is an
increase in the incidence of lung cancer among women. For instance, the annual
percentage change in the incidence rates of lung cancer is 0.8 per cent in
Mumbai, 2.4 per cent in Delhi, 4.1 per cent in Bangalore and 4.9 per cent in
Chennai. The age group of women is 35-44 years in some cities, younger women
have taken to smoking in a big way.”
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