World No Tobacco Day 2004 European Region Fact Sheet

Tobacco and poverty • In most European countries today, the poor are more likely to smoke than the rich. In most high-income countries, there are significant differences in the prevalence of smoking between different socioeconomic groups. In the European Union (EU) Member States the top two groups in terms of smoking in 2002 were the unemployed (54%) and manual workers (51%), the EU average being 39 % (1). Overall, the smoking epidemic is spreading from its original focus among men in high-income countries to women in high-income countries and men in low-income regions. Historically, as income rose within a population, the number of people who smoked rose, too. But in the past three to four decades this pattern appears to have been reversed, at least among men. Affluent men in high-income countries have increasingly abandoned tobacco, whereas poorer men have not done so. The following examples are based on data published or made available by countries. • In Norway, the proportion of men with high incomes who smoked fell from 75 % in 1955 to 28 % in 1990. Over the same period, the proportion of men on low incomes wh