Tobacco use: adult smoking GB and international comparison

England and Wales comparison

Over the past 40 years smoking prevalence has generally been higher in Scotland than in both England and Wales - see Chart 1 (95Kb). There was a clear downward trend in smoking prevalence in all three countries from the 1970s up to the mid-2000s. Since then, however, the downward trend has been less pronounced. It should be noted that, due to the change in the method of data collection in 2021 Scottish Health Survey, caution is advised in the interpretation of the published Scottish smoking prevalence for 2021.

European comparison

The World Health Organization's Health for All database can be used to compare smoking prevalence among adults across European countries, although this is not straightforward. The data are collated from individual country-specific surveys. As these are carried out in different years, cover different age groups and have different methodologies, caution is required in drawing comparisons between countries. Charts 2 and 3 compare adult smoking prevalence across selected European Union (EU) countries for males and females respectively. The countries selected are those with the most comparable data to Scotland in terms of when surveys were carried out and the age groups covered.

Chart 2 (53Kb) suggests that Scotland compares favourably to most of the selected countries in terms of adult male smoking prevalence.

Chart 3 (57Kb) suggests that the position in relation to females is only slightly less favourable. These differences may be explained by differences in cultural attitudes towards smoking.