Iss, in Italy 1 in 4 adults smokes, 30% of young people use cigarettes or vapes

In Italy the majority of adults between 18 and 69 do not smoke (59%) or have stopped smoking (17%), but one in 4 is a smoker (24%). And the percentage is growing among young people, of whom 30.2% use at least one product between a traditional cigarette, heated tobacco or e-cig. Also in this age group, ‘polyconsumption’, the simultaneous use of different products, doubles. This is indicated by some results of two different surveys by the Higher Institute of Health, released on the eve of World No Tobacco Day, scheduled for May 31st. The reference research is for adults the Passi surveillance of the National Center for Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (Cnapps), for young people the survey on tobacco and nicotine consumption in students in the 2023-2024 school year of National Center for Addiction and Doping of the ISS. The complete results will be illustrated tomorrow, during a conference organized by the National Center for Addiction and Doping together with the Mario Negri Irccs Pharmacological Research Institute and the Italian Society of Tobaccoology.

“In the last 15 years the percentage of smokers has decreased, but too slowly. They were 30% in 2008, now they stand at 24%”, highlights the president of the ISS, Rocco Bellantone. “This process – he underlines – must be accelerated by focusing on prevention, which must start from schools. In fact, schools are one of the main places in which to build sociality among children and young people which aims to promote healthy lifestyles, such as not to smoke.” The reduction in smokers recorded in the last fifteen years, the data indicates, involves all age groups and both men and women, but with different methods and rhythms. The share of smokers is decreasing among both men and women, but among the latter the reduction is slower and the result is that today women have partly eroded the advantage they historically had over men.

The reduction in smoking habits is found in general in all age groups, but is mainly supported by younger groups. However, if among the latter the share of consumers of traditional cigarettes is reduced, the share of ‘dual’ or exclusive consumers of other smoking products (including e-cigs and heated tobacco) is increasing.

Average daily consumption 12 cigarettes per day, 22% one pack

The average daily consumption is around 12 cigarettes, however 22 smokers out of 100 consume more than one pack. Cigarette smoking is more frequent among men than women (28% compared to 21%) and affects much more people with economic difficulties or low education. At the top of the ranking of the regions with the highest percentages of smokers are some regions in the Centre-South, such as Umbria and Campania. A third of smokers interviewed say they have tried to quit smoking in the previous 12 months, going at least one day without smoking. But in the vast majority of cases (almost 78%) the attempt fails: only a low percentage (11%) reach the goal and report having stopped smoking more than 6 months ago.

In the two-year period 2022-2023, compared to a share of smokers equal to 24%, 20% report exclusive use of traditional cigarettes and 4% declare both smoking traditional cigarettes and using an electronic device (between e-cigs and heated tobacco). Added to these is a share of people (3%) who instead make exclusive use of electronic devices. Therefore, based on the Passi monitoring of all devices, there is a constant reduction in the share of those who use exclusively traditional cigarettes (from 25% in 2014 to 20% in 2023) in favor of an increase in those who use both traditional cigarettes and electronic devices (from 1.5% in 2014 to 4.4% in 2023); to which is then added a share, also slowly growing, of those who only use electronic devices (from 0.4% in 2014 to 3.3% in 2023).

“The composite use of smoking products represents a complex challenge for public health – states Giovanni Capelli, director of Cnapps – because it cannot be ruled out that the combination of traditional cigarettes and electronic devices, with and without nicotine, results in an increase of the risk to health, due to exposure to tobacco combustion products which however remain and add to the risks linked to exposure to higher levels of nicotine and to a variety of harmful chemical substances contained in electronic devices”.