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Australian Family Physician
Australian Family Physician

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Volume 43, Issue 6, June 2014

Tobacco smoking

Lisa Valenti Janice Charles Helena Britt
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From April 2012 to March 2013, general practitioner (GP) BEACH participants recorded the current smoking status of 32,276 patients aged ≥18 years. Over half of the patients had never smoked and one-quarter were previous smokers. A small proportion (3%) described themselves as occasional smokers and 17% were daily smokers. The following differences between groups were all statistically significant as assessed using non-overlapping 95% confidence intervals.

Smoking status of patients

The proportion of females who had never smoked (62%) was higher than that of males (44%); male patients were more likely to be previous, occasional or daily smokers (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Smoking status of patients

Figure 1. Smoking status of patients

Daily smokers

There was a greater proportion of daily smokers among people aged 25–44 years (22%) than in any other age group. The percentage of smokers among patients aged 65–74 years (8%) was less than half that of patients in the younger age groups. Of those aged ≥75 years, 4% were daily smokers. Patients who carried a healthcare card (HCC) were more likely to smoke (22%) than non-HCC holders (14%), and daily smoking was more prevalent among those from an English-speaking background (ESB, 17%) than from a non-English-speaking background (NESB, 13%). Patients were divided into major city, regional and remote residential locations using the Australian Standard Geographical Classification. Those who lived in a major city were less likely to smoke (16%) than those who lived in regional (20%) or remote (26%) areas.

Figure 2. Patient characteristic-specific rates of daily smokers

Figure 2. Patient characteristic-specific rates of daily smokers

Competing interests: None.
Provenance and peer review: Commissioned.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the GP participants in the BEACH program and all members of the BEACH team. Financial contributors to BEACH 2012– 2013: Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing; Australian Government Department of Veterans’ Affairs; AstraZeneca Pty Ltd (Australia); CSL Biotherapies Pty Ltd; Merck, Sharp and Dohme (Australia) Pty Ltd; National Prescribing Service Ltd; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Australia Pty Ltd; Pfizer Australia Pty Ltd.


References
  1. World Health Organization. WHO 2013 Global Health Observatory (GHO), 2013. Available at www.who.int/gho/tobacco/en/index.html [Accessed 30 April 2014]. Search PubMed
  2. World Health Organization. Tobacco Fact Sheet No. 339, 2013. Available at www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs339/en [Accessed 30 April 2014]. Search PubMed
  3. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Australia’s health 2008. AIHW Cat. no. AUS99. Canberra:AIHW, 2008. Search PubMed
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