The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: The aim of the study was to calculate the impact of smoking on mortality rates and life expectancy at birth in Russian men in order to have an evidence-based reason for working-out of effective antismoking policy to change smoking behavior in the country.

Methods: National data on smoking prevalence and smoking relative risk mortality for men of 35-74 years old as well as life table estimates for Russian men were used to calculate smoking-attributable mortality, potential life year and life expectancy at birth lost.

Results: Prevalence of smoking in men of 15 years and older is 63% that gives about 35 million of smokers in the country. There has been estimated of 270,000 smoking-attributable deaths per year in the group 35-74 years (210,000 in the group 25-64 years) or 781 standardized deaths per 100,000 persons/year (854 for the group 25-64 year). The amount of potential years life lost due to smoking-attributable deaths is 4,7 million persons-years (4,1 million persons years for the group 35-64 years). The premature deaths due to smoking result in 4 years lost of life expectancy at birth. Conclusion. Smoking that stars in Russia at 11-12 years is very spread in adult male population. Considerable harmful consequences of smoking are observed in the working age population that responsible for the prosperity and well being of the nation. To reduce tobacco burden on public health and economics, effective antismoking policy has to be worked-out and implemented throughout the country.