The assistance of Ms Vicki White (Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer, Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria) in preparing this chapter is gratefully acknowledged.
A number of surveys of smoking rates have been conducted in recent years. Many have been on a state or regional level, have surveyed a specific subgroup of the population, or have employed differing methodologies. The two publications 'Tobacco in Australia -- A summary of related statistics'(1) and 'Statistics on drug abuse in Australia 1994'(2) contain the results of some of these surveys.
To assist in gaining an understanding of trends in smoking prevalence in Australia, discussion in this chapter is confined to national adult and schoolchildren's surveys undertaken by standard methods since 1974 and 1984 respectively. Limited data on adult smoking prevalence prior to 1974 are available. These data were collected by the same market research company that has been commissioned to collect the data in subsequent years. Combined, this data set comprises the best available long term measure of adult smoking prevalence in Australia.