Australia has lost its momentum on tobacco control, with government investment in mass media quit-smoking campaigns plummeting to about one-fifth of the amount spent a decade ago.
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The annual overall cost to Australia caused by smoking was recalculated last year to nearly $137 billion - more than four times the previous estimate reported in 2004, after decades of great success, cancer experts say.
The authors of a perspective published on Wednesday in Public Health Research & Practice, say spending on anti-smoking media campaigns by the Australian, NSW and Victorian governments fell from about $36 million to $7.1 million between 2010-11 and 2017-18 despite being among the most cost-effective reduction strategies.
Authors Paul Grogan, of the Cancer Council, and Professor Emily Banks, of the Australian National University's National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health and the independent Sax Institute, say public health campaigns are among the most cost-effective smoking reduction strategies.
"The risk of smoking causing as many as 1.6 million preventable deaths in Australia (two-thirds of current smokers) should be enough to galvanise a re-energised, whole-of-government response to tobacco control," they say.
Australia's national adult smoking rate is 16 per cent for men and 12 per cent for women, down from 58 per cent and 28 per cent for men and women respectively more than 40 years ago.
Daily smoking in Australians aged over 14 is at a record low 11.5 per cent but evidence about the harms of smoking continues to mount.
Smoking causes 15 fatal cancer types besides lung cancer, and about 11.5 per cent of heart disease deaths as well as accounting for nearly 10 per cent of Australia's total disease burden, with smoking the underlying cause of premature death in two in three long-term smokers.
The authors welcome federal Health Minister Greg Hunt's recent commitment to reduce the national smoking rate to 10 per cent by 2025, and call for the fourth National Tobacco Strategy to "form a blueprint for re-energising tobacco control".
"Tobacco control in Australia is a great success story but it is far from over," they write.
The perspective is one of nine papers published on Wednesday as part of a special issue produced in partnership with Cancer Council Australia.
One paper calls for a national strategy for treating tobacco dependence, which would see evidence-based cessation approaches actively promoted to individuals. The authors, from Quit Victoria and Deakin University, say "treatment is fragmented and resourcing is woefully inadequate given the scale of mortality and morbidity".
A paper by experts from Cancer Council NSW, the University of Sydney and Western Sydney University says curbs on the widespread availability of tobacco are a "critical next step" in the fight against tobacco use.
Former federal health minister Michael Wooldridge says in an interview that despite many recent policy successes, "there's not enough happening" to maintain downward pressure on smoking.
Dr Wooldridge says action on tobacco should only be eased "when adult smoking rates are two per cent or lower".
Australian Associated Press
