Report on smoking

The working paper, Report on smoking in Canada, the second in a series, analyses the comparability of surveys conducted by Statistics Canada on smoking prevalence and daily cigarette consumption from 1985 to 2001. It also examines the statistical significance and changes in the data among these survey years.

From 1985 to 2001, Statistics Canada conducted 15 surveys that asked questions about smoking. Most of the surveys had questions on smoking that are comparable, although caution should be used when comparing results from some of these surveys.

From 1985 to 1991, prevalence of current smoking, that is, daily smokers and occasional smokers, declined overall, for both sexes and all age groups except those aged 15 to 24. Larger declines occurred from 1991 to 2001.

Although current smoking prevalence for youths did not significantly change from 1985 to 1994/95, there was a significant decrease from 28.5% in 1994/95 to 22.5% in 2001.

Among the provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia experienced most of their declines in current smoking prevalence from 1994/95 onwards. All provinces experienced some level of declines over the entire period from 1985 to 2001.

Information on methods and data quality available in the Integrated Meta Data Base: survey number 4440.

The paper Report on smoking in Canada, 1985 to 2001, (82F0077XIE, free), is now available free on Statistics Canada's website (http://www.statcan.gc.ca). From the Products and services page, under Browse our Internet publications, choose Free, then Health.

For more information, or to enquire about concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Jason Gilmore (613-951-7118; jason.gilmore@statcan.gc.ca), Health Statistics Division.