Several series of surveys investigating adult smoking behaviour in Australia have been undertaken in recent decades, providing a wealth of information. The most comprehensive are:
- the National Health Surveys, conducted approximately five-yearly (and more recently three-yearly) by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, with the first including routine questionsi on smoking behaviour undertaken in 1989–19901-8
- surveys undertaken by research groups under the auspices of Cancer Council Victoria (formerly the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria) at three-yearly intervals, from 1974 to 1998.9-18
- the National Tobacco Survey, which collected information annually on tobacco use and behaviours among Australian teenagers and adults on behalf of the Department of Health and Ageing. It was first commissioned in 1997 as a tool to evaluate the National Tobacco Campaign19 but was also used for several years to monitor the impact of other tobacco policy initiatives. This survey was discontinued.
- the National Drug Strategy Household Surveys, results of which are published by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, commencing in 1985 and conducted every two to three years20-30 Since 2001, the National Drug Strategy Household Survey has assessed smoking status using a consistent methodology considered similar to that of Cancer Council Victoria surveys.31 Additional analysisii of both of these data sources has produced the most consistently collected and detailed trends data available for Australia, spanning the years from 1980 to 2019.
Discussion in this chapter will draw on these and other sources. In most cases the latest estimates of smoking prevalence and analysis of historical trends are drawn from National Drug Strategy Household Survey data (as described in Footnote ii).
Changes in the volume of tobacco consumed are discussed in Chapter 2.
References
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