UK Tobacco controls a success in cutting smoking among adolescents

Related links: Full article available online MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit A new study, published today, reveals a significant drop in the number of young people taking up smoking over the last 20 years, as the UK has introduced a range of tobacco controls. However research findings also show inequalities in starting smoking across different economic backgrounds, despite these regulations. The figures, taken from the period between 1990 and 2012, show a fall of 50% in the numbers of 15 years-olds who try smoking for the first time, and around a 50% decrease in the likelihood of young people progressing to becoming occasional or daily smokers after initiation. But the study showed that young people from less economically developed backgrounds are still more than twice as likely to experiment with smoking, and more likely to become daily smokers than those whose parents were better off. Michael Green, Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Glasgow, and lead researcher on the project, said: "We tracked the chances of young people starting smoking across the UK over the past two decades and during this period of tightening tobacco controls, we found that young people had become less likely to try cigarettes or establish a daily smoking habit. This leads us to believe that the overall strengthening of tobacco control measures has had a health-promoting effect among younger people. "However, these findings also reveal that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are still more likely to become smokers and to start smoking earlier in life, a pattern that was consistent across the period we were investigating.