Tobacco Epidemic and Health Risk in the Chinese Population

The prevalence of tobacco in Chinese men has peaked since the 1980s. The past 30 years, the smokers start to smoking more and more early, and a half of smokers did before 20 years old in 2010 survey; the prevalence of male smoking only fallen about 10% from 1984 to 2015, did not drop and still over 50% from 2002 to 2015. For female, its prevalence of smoking has been kept very low level. By 2015, after 10 years the entry into force of the Convention, the prevalence of SHS exposure at homes and in the public places were dropped to 46.7 and 54.3%, separately. However, there are still about half of the non smokers at home or in public places suffer from SHS exposure. Reviewing eight case-control or prospective cohort studies in different urban and rural of China from 1980s to 2005. The overall mortality of smokers was significantly greater than that of nonsmokers, relative risk (RRs) are from 1.1 in 1990s rural to 1.65 in 2010 urban. The urban male smokers who had started before age 20 years had twice the never-smoker mortality rate (RR 1.98, 1.79–2.19) and who daily smoked more than 25 cigarettes was closed twice (RR 1.93, 1.75–2.12). Based on these estimation, smoking caused about one million (840,000 male, 130,000 female) deaths in China in 2010. The female tobacco attributable mortality fraction may be over-estimated from GBD2010 study and WHO 2008 study, which is different with the results of all epidemiological studies. GBD study estimated that exposure SHS causes around 159,000 deaths in China in 2010. Although it is need to further approach and deepen for the scientific evidence on secondhand smoke, the current global and Chinese evidences were sufficient for public health intervention.