Trends in knowledge of smoking harms
Individuals may have an understanding of the link between smoke exposure and lung cancer but inadequate awareness of the cardiovascular risks of smoking and secondhand smoke.
In a study published in BMJ Open, investigators used nationally representative survey data from the 2002 to 2022 International Tobacco Control Project and 2008 to 2020 Global Adult Tobacco Survey to examine their knowledge related to adverse smoking and secondhand smoke outcomes among nearly 250,000 adult participants who currently smoked tobacco and resided across 46 countries.
The survey respondents were highly aware of the risks of lung cancer but less familiar with the association between smoking and cardiovascular disease, heart attack and stroke. Further, the respondents had a lower understanding of the connection between secondhand smoke and lung cancer, followed by cardiovascular disease and heart attack. The investigators stressed that there was little change in the awareness of the potential health hazards linked to smoking and secondhand smoke over the 20-year study period.
The findings indicated that although individuals showed a high awareness of the lung harms associated with exposure to smoke, fewer respondents showed an understanding of the adverse cardiovascular effects of smoke exposure and secondhand smoke-related harms. In order to achieve tobacco prevention targets, the investigators emphasized the need to identify strategies to control tobacco consumption, including health warnings, mass media campaigns and policy changes.
Read more: BMJ Open
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