Fewer secondary school students are taking up smoking as researchers report “favourable progress” towards national cessation targets.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has reported on progress towards reducing the smoking rate to 10% of the population by 2018, as benchmarked by the national tobacco strategy.
The report released on Wednesday compared baseline and midpoint figures from a range of sources from 2007 to 2014, and found the habit seemed to be falling out of favour with young people.
19.1% of high school students aged between 12 and 17 had tried a cigarette for the first time in 2014, compared with 23% in 2011.
There was also a decline in the proportion of young people who had smoked at least 100 cigarettes in their lifetime – considered a benchmark for the “transition” phase of the habit – with only 2.7% of secondary school students having done so in 2014, down from 3. 5% in 2011.
23% of young adults aged between 18 and 24 had smoked more than 100 cigarettes in their lifetimes in 2013 compared with 29% in 2010.
And young adults were also found to be delaying the onset of tobacco smoking; an older average age (15.9 years) was reported at midpoint in 2013 than at baseline (15.4 years) in 2010.
The chief executive of Cancer Council Australia, Prof Sanchia Aranda, said measures including rises in tobacco taxes, plain packaging laws and bans on smoking in public areas were all deterring young people.
“It’s becoming socially normal for people not to smoke, so it’s great for kids,” she said.
Similar trends were found among adults. Daily smoking rates declined to 14.5% in 2014-15 from 18.9% in 2007-08.
In 2013, 57% of adults had smoked a full cigarette, compared with 63% in 2010.
There was also a significant increase in the proportion of smokers giving up the habit. The number of adult smokers who had given up rose to 52% in 2013 from 47% in 2010.
But researchers said more time was needed before progress for cessation could be reported on.
Progress was also not as marked among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults. The number of Indigenous daily smokers was down by 7%, compared with a decline of 15% in non-Indigenous adults.
“Despite the fact that Indigenous smoking rates are improving, they are not improving at the same rate as non-indigenous Australians, so the gap is widening across a number of indicators,” said Tim Beard, a spokesman for the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
People from low socio-economic areas also recorded falls in daily smoking rates, but not by as much as those from more wealthy areas.
“All the indicators are heading in the right direction,” said Aranda. “But the issue we see is there’s a widening disparity in terms of the haves and have-nots.
“People at greater disadvantage are stopping smoking but they are not falling at the same rates as people in more advantaged communities.”
More needed to be done to help Indigenous people and those in hard-to-reach communities give up smoking.
“The reality is that two out of three people who smoke will die of a tobacco-related illness, so despite our successes it’s still the number one public health issue,” she said.
• Australian Associated Press contributed to this report
