MORE than one-in-five Lithgow adults is still lighting up and smoking despite years of health warnings and the high cost of a packet of cigarettes.
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Figures released in the Australian Health Tracker by Area report estimate that 23.5 per cent of people in Lithgow over the age of 18 are now smoking, The equal fourth worst rate in the central west. Above Lithgow are Cowra, Nyngan and Wellington.
The number of smokers in Lithgow’s regional area was 21.3 per cent.
The report also showed that more men (26.3 per cent) than women (20.6 per cent) smoke in Lithgow.
It found that around 2665 people aged over 18 in the Lithgow area were considered to be smokers.
The worst area in NSW for smoking was Tamworth where 29.6 per cent of people over 18 were considered to be smokers and the best was in the Cherrybrook/West Pennant Hills area of Sydney where only 8.3 per cent of people smoked.
The director of public policy for the Cancer Council of Australia Paul Grogan said most smokers were older people from lower socio-economic areas and who generally lived in rural areas.
Mr Grogan said the good news was that many young people did not smoke.
“We know that in Australia fewer than five per cent of teenagers have ever tried smoking,” he said.
“The area where we need to be concerned about it is older people who are longer-term smokers.”
He said that they continued to smoke despite Australia’s tobacco tax being one of the highest in the world, which forced up the price of cigarettes.
And he said smokers seemed to be dismissive of health warning campaigns particularly when funding cutbacks reduced their prevalence.
“Awareness of the health effects of smoking is dropping,” he said.
“It co-relates with the reduction of government investment in those mass-market (anti-smoking) campaigns.”
Mr Grogan said people should realise that smoking is a major cause of 16 different types of cancer, cardio-vascular disease and circulation problems.
“Research released about two years ago showed that two in three long-term smokers will die prematurely just because they smoked.”
He said they were dying 10-15 years prematurely.
Research co-ordinator Dr Rebecca Lindberg said there was a national health target of cutting the number of Australian smokers to five per cent by 2025.
