Smoking prevalence in over 18s

What this data shows:

Smoking is the most important cause of preventable ill health and premature mortality in the UK. Smoking is a major risk factor for many diseases, such as lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart disease. It is also associated with cancers in other organs, including lip, mouth, throat, bladder, kidney, stomach, liver and cervix.

How the data is gathered:

Prevalence of smoking among persons aged 18 years and over.

Data Source:

Annual Population Survey (APS)

Data Period:

2018

Further Information:

Each eligible participant (18 years and over) in the Annual Population Survey (APS) was asked two smoking related questions:

From 2016:

1. Have you ever smoked cigarettes regularly? (yes/no)

2. Do you smoke cigarettes at all nowadays? (yes/no)

Prior to 2016:

1. Have you ever smoked a cigarette, cigar or pipe? (yes/no)

2. Do you smoke cigarettes at all nowadays? (yes/no)

From this smoking status was derived as "current", "ex-smoker" or "non-smoker". Self-reported smoking status may be prone to respondent bias.

For further details please see https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/documents/ex-smokers.pdf

These data have not been age-standardised and, therefore, variation between area values may be a result of differences in population structure.

The numerator and denominator counts (which have been weighted to improve representativness) are based on a sample of the population and, as such, are not true counts.

Where the estimate is based on a sample size of less than 30 there is uncertainty in these estimates.

In July 2018 the confidence interval method has been modified and new confidence intervals have been applied to the entire time series. See https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/documents/CI_change.pdf for further details.

This indicator is available via the Public Health Outcomes Framework - http://www.phoutcomes.info/