National Anti-smoking Day: tobacco kills 6 million people a year
August 29, 2017 02h00 PM | Last Updated: September 04, 2017 09h21 AM
Smoking is the main cause of avoidable deaths in the year. A study by the World Health Organization (WHO), released in 2011, reports that tobacco was responsible for about 6 million deaths every year. Who projections are terrifying: the expected number of deaths for year 2020 is 7.5 million.
In order to warn Brazilians about the risks of smoking, law no. 7,488 set the 29th of August as the National Anti-smoking Day, as a way to reinforce Brazil’s fight against tobacco. In 2013, the IBGE’s National Survey of Health showed that 21.9 million (15%) Brazilians over 18 years of age made regular use of tobacco products. Also according to the survey, smoking tobacco products were more consumed than non-smoking ones, and the manufactured cigarette was the most common item in that group.
In 2009, the WHO reported that smoking habits start in one’s teenage years. Another survey conducted by the IBGE, the National Survey of School Health (PeNSE), of 2015, reveals that 18.4% of the students enrolled in the 9th grade of middle school had already tried some kind of cigarette. The same publication also reports that 26.2% of the students had one smoking parent, at least.
Since 2008, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics has been engaged in the fight against tobacco in Brazil, with the beginning of the Special Survey of Tobacco Use (PETab), which improved the questionnaire developed by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, extended in the PNS 2013. The studies won the IBGE and the Ministry of Health recognition awards in 2009 and in 2015.
Text: Karina Meirelles (intern under the supervision of Irene Gomes)
Image: Flickr / Paul Bence
