The Global Burden of Disease, Injuries and Risk Factors (GBD) Tobacco Forecasting Collaborators recently published a study in The Lancet Public Health journal, highlighting the potential benefits of accelerating the decline in tobacco smoking globally. The study suggests that reducing smoking prevalence to 5% everywhere by 2050 could lead to increased life expectancy and prevent millions of premature deaths.
According to the analysis, if tobacco smoking were to gradually decline to 5% by 2050, there would be an additional year of life expectancy in males and 0.2 years in females. Eliminating smoking from 2023 onwards could result in up to 1.5 additional years of life expectancy in males and 0.4 years in females by 2050. This scenario would also prevent millions of premature deaths.
Smoking remains a leading risk factor for preventable death and ill health globally, accounting for more than one in ten deaths in 2021. While smoking rates have decreased over the past three decades, the pace of decline varies across countries and has slowed in many regions.
Cancers, ischemic heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are the leading causes of premature deaths related to smoking, contributing to 85% of potentially avoidable years of life lost (YLLs). Several countries have set ambitious goals to reduce smoking rates to below 5%, but there is still a need to strengthen policies and interventions to achieve these targets.
Professor Stein Emil Vollset, the senior author of the study from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), emphasized the importance of not losing momentum in efforts to reduce and eliminate smoking worldwide. The study used IHME’s Future Health Scenarios platform to provide detailed forecasts of health outcomes related to smoking for 204 countries from 2022 to 2050.
The analysis focused on YLLs, a measure of premature deaths, and evaluated three future scenarios: a most likely future scenario based on current trends, a scenario where smoking rates decrease to 5% by 2050, and a scenario where smoking was eliminated globally in 2023. The results indicated that accelerating efforts to eliminate smoking could lead to significant reductions in premature deaths and increased life expectancy.
While the study had some limitations, such as not accounting for the health effects of e-cigarettes or potential future improvements in healthcare, it underscores the importance of continued efforts to curb tobacco smoking. The findings suggest that by taking proactive measures to reduce smoking prevalence, millions of premature deaths could be avoided, and global life expectancy could significantly improve by 2050.
