3 November 2009

Dr David Thomas of Menzies School of Health has published new research this week in the International Journal for Equity in Health undermining the idea that the prevalence of smoking in the Australian Indigenous community has not changed, whilst smoking has fallen in the rest of the Australian population.

‘Australian Indigenous tobacco control has been framed by the idea that nothing has worked and a sense of either despondency or the difficulty of the challenge,’ he said.

This new research showed that from 1994 to 2004 Indigenous smoking prevalence in non-remote Australia fell in parallel with the total Australian population (by 5.5% in men and 1.9% in women).  In remote Australia, smoking prevalence also fell amongst men (by 3.5%) and appears to have peaked in women. 

‘These trends are consistent with international research about the shape of smoking epidemics, with remote Indigenous Australia just at an earlier point in the predictable smoking epidemic than Indigenous peoples in non-remote Australia.’

This research re-examined the first three large national Indigenous surveys conducted in 1994, 2002 and 2004 by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).  The published reports of the different surveys had used different age cut-offs or different definitions of smoking and had all stated that Indigenous smoking prevalence was unchanging at about 50%.  This new research used consistent categories to enable comparisons between the surveys.

Also this week, the ABS released the first results of the fourth national Indigenous survey in this series.  Detailed comparisons are not yet possible with the results released, but they have reported a drop in national Indigenous smoking from 51% in 2002 to 47% in 2008, which supports the findings from Dr Thomas’ research.

‘These results are very encouraging, as reducing Indigenous smoking will inevitably lead to less Indigenous suffering, sickness and early death.’

‘We now need to increase our efforts to reduce Indigenous smoking faster using tobacco control policies and activities that have been proven in other contexts.’

‘Reducing Indigenous smoking should no longer be considered exceptionally difficult’.

Link to article: http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/8/1/37

Contact:  David Thomas 08 89227610 or 0427 054269
  Julie Carmichael 02 65548333 or 0429 916758