| ■ Rise in Women's Smoking May Cause Global Health Disaster: Study | 2009.03.16 |
| Increasing rates of smoking by women around the world could lead to a "global public health disaster," according to the third edition of the Tobacco Atlas, released Monday by the American Cancer Society and the World Lung Foundation. About six million people will die from tobacco-related diseases in 2010, and that toll will rise to seven million by 2020 and to eight million by 2030, said the study. Death rates are rising fastest in developing countries. In 2007, almost 72 percent of global tobacco-related deaths will be in low- and middle-income nations, and that figure will rise to 83 percent in 2030, Agence France Presse reported. "If the women of the world begin smoking at the same rate as men, it will be an unmitigated global public health disaster," the study authors wrote. "Preventing increases in smoking prevalence among women, especially in low- and middle-income resourced countries, will have a greater impact on global health than any other single intervention." Worldwide, an estimated one billion men and 250 million women use tobacco every day, said the study. China (311 million men and 14 million women) and India (229 million men and 12 million women) are the world's biggest tobacco users, AFP reported. |