The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: The focus of the study is to estimate smoking-attributable mortality in the Czech Republic in 2002 using smoking attributable fractions and to compare this estimate with the estimates based on smoking impact ratio method.

Methods: For computation of smoking-attributable fractions we used data from the US Cancer Prevention Study II and smoking prevalence from a large national population survey carried out in 2002. Smoking-attributable mortality was calculated using Czech mortality statistics and the SAFs.

Results: In 2002, 20,827 (95% CI 18,851-21,981) were attributable to tobacco use (14,800 for men and 6,027 in women). The deaths caused by smoking represent 19 % of total mortality in the country in 2002 (27 % of mortality in males and 11 % in females). Earlier available estimates were made by Peto and Lopez for the years 1995 (22,300 deaths attributable to smoking) and 2000 (17,900 deaths). Current estimate is quite close to the earlier estimate of Peto and Lopez. The difference we found is due to lower SAM for women (3,700 deaths compared to figure from the current study). Conclusions: The stable and relatively high smoking-attributable mortality reflects the high prevalence rates for smoking and shows non-significant variation in last decade (slight decrease in males and increase for females). The government should adopt more effective measures in order to reduce smoking prevalence and thereby eventually save lives and reduce costs of the health care. This research was suported by the MoH CR Grant NR/7866-3.