Tobacco use: adult European comparison
The World Health Organisation's European tobacco control database can be used to compare smoking prevalence among adults across European countries, although this is not straightforward. The data is collated from individual country-specific surveys. As these are carried out in different years, cover different age groups and have different methodologies, caution is required in drawing comparisons between countries. Charts 1 and 2 compare adult smoking prevalence across selected European Union (EU) countries for males and females respectively. The countries selected are those with the most comparable data to Scotland in terms of when surveys were carried out and the age groups covered.
Chart 1 suggests that Scotland compares favourably to most of the selected countries in terms of adult male smoking prevalence. Only three countries, Sweden, Ireland and Finland, have a lower prevalence.
This is likely to reflect, at least in part, the more advanced stage of the 'smoking epidemic' among Scottish men when compared to men in other countries. British men born in the early 20th century were the first major population group to adopt regular cigarette smoking on a significant scale, with male smoking prevalence peaking in the middle of the century and falling steadily thereafter. As such, although smoking prevalence among Scottish men now appears to compare favourably to other EU countries, this may not have been the case in the past. The fact that Scotland is subject to a substantial burden of smoking-related death and disease is a legacy of high smoking prevalence in previous decades.
Chart 2 suggests that the position in relation to females is less favourable. These differences may be explained by differences in cultural attitudes towards smoking.
Please note: If you require the most up-to-date data available, please check the data sources directly as new data may have been published since these data pages were last updated. Although we endeavour to ensure that the data pages are kept up-to-date, there may be a time lag between new data being published and the relevant ScotPHO web pages being updated.
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