Most indigenous Australian smokers want to quit the habit and almost half have tried in the past year, new research shows.
Federal Health Minister Sussan Ley will launch a series of 15 government-funded research papers on Monday looking at indigenous smoking habits and attitudes.
The studies show 70 per cent of indigenous smokers want to give up and 78 per cent said they would never start smoking if they could go back.
The federal government has budgeted $35.3 million for the next financial year to tackle smoking among indigenous people.
The Menzies School of Health Research says the study of 2500 indigenous Australians justifies significant funding for quit smoking initiatives.
"We found that many of the different types of tobacco control activities were associated with people wanting to quit and making quit attempts," the study's leader, Associate Professor David Thomas of Menzies School of Health Research, said.
The number of indigenous smokers is falling but is still more than double the number of non-indigenous smokers.
Smoking causes one-fifth of all indigenous deaths.
The Talking about the Smokes research papers, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, also show almost all people surveyed knew smoking caused lung cancer and that second-hand smoke could harm children.
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