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Tobacco toll will rise as girls light up

Estimates of future smoking-related deaths world-wide must be increased because of the number of young girls who now use tobacco just as much as boys, the World Health Organisation has warned.

A survey of over one million adolescents in over 150 countries has shown that current projections of the number who will die from smoking are likely to be an underestimate, because they are based on adult smoking patterns. While adult figures show women as only one-quarter as likely as men to smoke, in many areas of the world, says WHO, girls aged 13 to 15 are smoking or using other tobacco products as much as boys.

Dr Vera Da Costa e Silva, of WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative, said: ‘National governments can help address this now through gender sensitive education and awareness programmes.’

Young people’s use of cigarettes and other tobacco products varied dramatically across the world, according to the anonymous and confidential Global Youth Tobacco Survey. Cigarette smoking among boys ranged from 0.5 per cent in Delhi and Goa, India to 42 per cent in Bamako, Mali. Use of tobacco among girls ranged from 0.4 per cent in Macao, China to 63 per cent in the Northern Mariana Islands.

Meanwhile in the UK, results from the Department of Health’s recent Smoking, drinking and drug misuse among young people in England 2002 survey show that while the overall number of pupils aged 11 to 15 who smoke has remained stable since 1998, the proportion of girls who smoke has increased. In 2001, 11 per cent of girls were regular smokers compared with only 8 per cent of boys.

The DoH giving up smoking campaign has ‘no firm plans to make our ads gender specific as such,’ a department press person said. ‘Our evidence is suggests that it’s the smoker-to-smoker appeal and emotional power of the ads which affects people, and these are things which tend to transcend the gender issue.