According to a research from the Australian National University (ANU) there have been substantial reductions in smoking prevalence among Indigenous Australians in the last 20 years.
Professor Kathy Thurber, post-Doctoral fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the ANU says collecting this type of data started in 1994 and there has been a steady improvement since then. The number of smoker’s has dropped from 55% in 1994 down to 41% in 2014–15.
However, the co-author of the report, Dr Raymond Lovett, from the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the ANU, warns that despite the positive trend in smoking prevalence we will continue to see an increase in tobacco related illnesses in a near future.
“We have seen significant decreases in smoking prevalence among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults, which will bring substantial health benefit in both the short and long term. However, we will continue to see the health consequences of tobacco use from up to 30 years ago – when smoking prevalence was at its peak – because of the delay between smoking and the onset of diseases such as lung cancer,” Dr Lovett said.
The study was published in the latest edition of the Sax’ Institutes journal Public Health Research and Practice and is part of a special issue which celebrates 50 years since the 1967 referendum, when Australians voted to amend the constitution to allow the Commonwealth to create laws for Indigenous people and include them in the Census.
