GBD 2019: Spatial, Temporal, and Demographic Patterns in Prevalence of Smoking Tobacco Use and Attributable Disease Burden in 204 Countries and Territories, 1990-2019

This article from The Lancet estimates the prevalence of global smoking tobacco use and associated disease burden for 204 countries and territories. These estimates are intended to aid decision-makers as they implement national and international tobacco control interventions. In 2019, the authors estimate that 1.14 billion people were currently smoking tobacco products, consuming more than 7 trillion cigarette-equivalents of tobacco that year. While overall prevalence has decreased significantly since 1990 for both sexes, the total number of smokers has increased due to population growth, up from .99 billion in 1990. Globally, smoking tobacco accounted for 7.69 million deaths and 200 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) in 2019, making smoking tobacco the leading risk factor for death in males that year. Despite global progress in reducing tobacco smoking, large intervention implementation gaps remain for tobacco control. The authors called for appropriate interventions to reduce the prevalence of tobacco smoking worldwide, as they expect trends in fatalities and DALYs to continue rising unless action is taken.

Led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, GBD is a global effort with researchers from over 150 countries and territories. IHME and other partnering organizations have developed numerous resources to disseminate and visualize the findings of the GBD studies, data visualizations and interactives, country profiles, policy reports, research articles, infographics, and the GBD Results Tool, which allows users to search GBD data.