A comparative study of smoking, drinking and dietary habits in population samples in France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. II. Tobacco smoking.

This paper describes the smoking habits of six populations in France, Switzerland, Italy and Spain. A total of 2,965 men and 2,369 women have been interviewed. The proportion of ever smoking men is almost the same (75 to 80%) everywhere but in Geneva and Calvados a higher proportion of smokers quitted the habit (over 30%). In females, on the contrary, the prevalences of ever smokers is higher in Torino (42%) and Geneva (36%) than in Spain (25%) and Calvados (19%). Young females, however, tend to smoke more and intercountry differences tend to disappear. In both sexes successive generations begin to smoke earlier. Exclusive use of black tobacco is still very high in Calvados (90%) and Navarra (80%) whilst it tends to disappear in Italy (30%). Plain cigarettes decrease everywhere, especially in Spain and Varese, but they are still smoked by the majority of men in Calvados. The results suggest that the tobacco epidemic is still increasing in those areas where it began more recently.