Smoking linked to death rate gender gap

New research suggests that the gender gap in death rates across Europe can largely be attributed to smoking.

Scientists at the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow analysed World Health Organisation figures on death rates around 2005 in 30 European countries.

They found that deaths from all causes were higher for men than women, but that the gender gap varied across the countries studied.


While Iceland had 188 more male deaths per 100,000 people per year, Ukraine recorded an excess in male deaths of 942 per 100,000.

Smoking was found to be behind 40 to 60 per cent of the gender gap in all countries except Denmark, Portugal and France (where it was lower) and Malta, where it was linked to 74 per cent of excess male deaths.

Writing in the journal Tobacco Control, the study authors observed that smoking kills twice as many men across Europe as alcohol.


They wrote: 'Profound changes in the population level of smoking and in the magnitude of the gender gap in smoking should contribute to smaller gender differences in mortality in the coming decades.'

The British Heart Foundation's senior cardiac nurse, Natasha Stewart, said that smoking is known to kill.

'It is never too late to give up smoking, so it's important we invest in support services to help people quit the habit, as well as ensuring our young people don't start smoking in the first place,' she argued.ADNFCR-554-ID-800348616-ADNFCR

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