Smoking is a major cause of heart disease, stroke, different forms of cancer and a wide variety of other health problems.
Preventable deaths
Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in Victoria. Find recent data on smoking-related deaths in Victoria at The Big Kill website.
Disease types
Many disease types are caused by smoking.
Lung cancer due to smoking usually takes 20 or more years to develop. As most lung cancers are caused by cigarette smoking, lung cancer patterns in the community indicate the smoking patterns of earlier decades. Early in the 20th century, lung cancer was a comparatively rare disease. Men's lung cancer death rates peaked in the early 1980s, and then declined. Women's lung cancer death rates increased markedly during the 1960s and continue to increase, although the rate of increase has begun to slow. Men's death rates still far exceed those of women. This is because men began smoking in large numbers prior to women, and have always had higher smoking rates.
Groups with higher death rates
Aboriginal and less wealthy socio-economic groups in Australia have higher smoking rates and higher death rates from tobacco caused disease.