OECD and Malaysia: Tobacco use and Disease

The data on tobacco use, in terms of prevalence (%) and annual consumption of cigarrete is compiled against tobacco-related diseases’ death: cancer (trachea, bronkus, lung) and chronic  obstrusive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Canada has the lowest (13.5%) while Greece (43.5%) has the highest prevalence of tobacco user among OECD countries. In terms of number of annual cigarrete consumption, Greece has a shocking number outdoing all the countries listed here: 4313 compared to average 2104, or equivalent to 11.8 cigarettes per person per year!

Tobacco used compared to disease in correlation:

It is shown that only the number of cigarettes smoked per year show moderately strong and positive correlation with the death rates caused by trachea, bronchus and lung cancers. Tobacco prevalence show very minor signal on the effect. It could mean that there are a lot of people are smoking and not necessarily resulted in higher death rates, but rather IT IS the high number of cigarettes that a smoker consumed which kills him/her.

sources:
1) WHO, Tobacco use
2) WHO-DALY, Death Rates by Disease