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Why we need tobacco sales data for good tobacco control

Coral E Gartner, Simon F Chapman, Wayne D Hall and Melanie A Wakefield
Med J Aust 2010; 192 (1): . || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2010.tb03389.x
Published online: 4 January 2010

Good-quality data on tobacco sales are vital for evaluating tobacco control interventions

The prevalence of smoking in Australia is among the lowest for high-income countries. In 2007, 17.9% of Australians aged 14 years or older were current smokers, compared with 23.6% in 1998. Yet tobacco remains Australia’s leading risk factor for premature death and disability, accounting for 7.8% of the total disease burden,1 nearly twice the combined burden caused by alcohol (2.2%) and illicit drugs (2.0%).


  • 1 School of Population Health, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD.
  • 2 School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW.
  • 3 Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer, Cancer Council Victoria, Melbourne, VIC.


Correspondence: c.gartner@sph.uq.edu.au

Acknowledgements: 

Coral Gartner is supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) postdoctoral research fellowship.

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