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Tobacco is one
of the public health disasters of the 20th century. It is the single most important cause
of preventable death in the world and with spiralling rates of tobacco consumption world
wide it is estimated that the number of deaths attributed to tobacco each year will
increase from 3M in 1990 to 10 M by 2030. Moreover, the burden of these deaths will
gradually shift from high to low and middle income countries so that by 2030, 7 out of 10
of these deaths will be in low income countries. The situation in the former Soviet
Union is particularly worrying. Not only is the risk of dying from tobacco in middle aged
males approximately twice as high in the former socialist than other OECD countries (as
shown here), but between 1965 and 1995 mortality from tobacco increased in the former
socialist countries whilst declining elsewhere. |
