Open AccessA COMPARISON OF PREMATURE MORTALITY DUE TO CIGARETTE SMOKING AND ROAD CRASHES IN AUSTRALIA
Author(s) -
Armstrong Bruce,
Klerk Nicholas
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
community health studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.946
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1753-6405
pISSN - 0314-9021
DOI - 10.1111/j.1753-6405.1981.tb00331.x
Subject(s) - medicine , demography , cigarette smoking , years of potential life lost , injury prevention , road traffic , environmental health , pediatrics , poison control , population , life expectancy , sociology , transport engineering , engineering
Summary By use of data on smoking induced death in Americans it has been estimated that current levels of cigarette smoking in Australia caused some 10,434 premature deaths in 1978. These deaths represented a total loss of about 156,730 person years of life, of which about 70,005 were lost before the age of 70 years. By way of comparison, in the same year, road crashes caused some 3,728 premature deaths with loss of about 152,211 person years of life in total, or about 123,062 before the age of 70 years. These results illustrate one method of setting priorities for action in preventive medicine.