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Smoking Twice as Dangerous for Poor People

A report studying mortality rates caused by lung cancer found that poor people are twice more likely to die prematurely from smoking than wealthy men

Jul 14, 2006 09:55 GMT  ·  By
  

If previous studies have shown that the rate of deaths among poor children and adults is much higher than the death of wealthy individuals, a recent study shows that smoking is more harmful for poor people than for rich ones.

The main causes for more poor people dying prematurely have been related by previous studies to: lack of employment, of an appropriate social and economic environment to live in etc. But the late study carried out in this respect showed that almost half of the deaths that differentiate poor from rich people are connected to smoking.

The study was developed by a scientific team consisting in co-leader Dr. Prabhat Jha of the Center for Global Health at the University of Toronto and colleagues at Oxford University. They studied the lung cancer that caused deaths of a half million men, that occurred in 1996. The deaths investigated were of individuals between the ages of 35 and 69 from the United States, Canada, England, Wales and Poland.

The estimated mortality risk found that middle aged poor people are two times more exposed to demise than wealthy people. "This means widespread cessation of smoking would do more than anything else to narrow the inequalities in health between rich and poor," Dr. Jha commented.

Co-author of the study, Professor Richard Peto from the University of Oxford concluded: "Across two continents, we find that smoking-related diseases account for well over half of the big difference in death rates between rich and poor."

In addition, Dr. Prabhat Jha said that measures that have been taken in order to reduce smoking among the population have been very beneficial for the health of numerous people: "Higher taxes, warning labels and other tobacco-control interventions have already been shown to help increase smoking cessation rates, with higher taxes being particularly effective at raising cessation rates among less educated or poorer groups."

But further measures have to be provided against smoking among the poorest social strata, according to Dr. Jha: "To extend those benefits to the poorest, means much more aggressive tobacco control. And if there was widespread cessation, then we believe we could have the social inequalities reduced between rich and poor by reducing tobacco consumption considerably."