APPENDIX F
House of Commons Research Paper 94/22
TOBACCO ADVERTISING BILL
4. Deaths attributable to smoking
The Smoking Epidemic: A manifesto for action
in England[46]
contains estimates of the actual numbers of deaths caused by
smoking in the UK, for the year 1988. In that (typical) year 110,692
deaths were caused by smoking, amounting to 17 per cent of all
deaths of people aged 35 and over. The precise figure quoted should
not be taken to imply an ability to ascribe deaths to smoking
in individual cases; people die of heart attacks, for example,
for other reasons. [47]
A proportion of the deaths arising from smoking can be obtained
by taking into account the smoking habits of the British population,
and using a knowledge of risk factors obtained from epidemiological
surveys.
The penultimate column of the table below gives
the number of deaths, in the UK in 1988, due to the main smoking-related
diseases. The third column demonstrates how large a role smoking
plays in the deaths from each disease; for example, 40 per cent
of deaths due to cancer of the bladder are attributable to smoking.
Table A1.1.
Estimates of percentages and numbers of deaths
attributable to smoking, UK 1988
| Attributable percentage | Attributable deaths | |
| Men | Women | All | Men | Women | All | Per
Cent. | |
Coronary heart disease | 24 | 11 | 18 | 23,573 | 8,536 | 32,109 | 29.0 |
Cerebrovascular disease (stroke) | 19 | 7 | 12 | 5,507 | 3,492 | 8,999 | 8.1 |
Aortic aneurism and atherosclerotic peripheral vascular disease
| 44 | 15 | 29 | 2,433 | 472 | 2,905 | 2.6 |
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease | 80 | 69 | 76 | 15,525 | 6,463 | 21,988 | 19.9 |
Cancer of the lung | 86 | 69 | 81 | 23,908 | 8,437 | 32,345 | 29.2 |
| Cancer of the buccal cavity, oesophagus, larynx | 84 | 48 | 71 | 4,468 | 1,478 | 5,946 | 5.4 |
Cancer of the bladder | 45 | 29 | 40 | 1,651 | 491 | 2,142 | 1.9 |
Cancer of the kidney | 49 | 7 | 32 | 774 | 71 | 845 | 0.8 |
Cancer of the pancreas | 22 | 30 | 26 | 716 | 1,065 | 1,781 | 1.6 |
Cancer of the cervix | - | 29 | 29 | - | 588 | 588 | 0.5 |
Ulcer of stomach and duodenum | 24 | 20 | 22 | 517 | 527 | 1,044 | 0.9 |
Total | - | - | - | 79,072 | 31,620 | 110,692 | 100.0 |
The Smoking Epidemic also
provides information in terms of life expectancy. A 35-year-old
woman who smokes can expect to live five years fewer than a non-smoker.
For a 35 year-old-man the figure is seven years; or, to put it
another way, these smokers lose on average more than one day of
life every week.
7 February 1994
46 The Smoking Epidemic: A manifesto for action
in England Health Education Authority 1992. Back
47
"Smoking accepted on death certificates" BMJ
3 October 1992 pp. 829-30. Back
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