Furthermore, the study found that tobacco-related deaths will impact poor countries the most. According to the report, one third of the world's population aged 15 and older regularly smokes cigarettes, with most of these smokers living in low- and middle-income countries.

In conducting the study, lead author Dr. Prabhat Jha of the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and colleagues analyzed smoking prevalence data for 139 countries. They found that men account for the majority of smokers worldwide, while men and women aged 30 to 49 have the highest rate of smoking by age.

The study identified East Asia and the Pacific, Europe, and central Asia as the regions with the highest proportion of smokers.

"Future decades will see dramatic increases in tobacco-attributable deaths in low- and middle-income regions. Although much of this excess mortality can be prevented if smokers stop smoking, quitting remains rare in low- and middle-income countries," Jha and colleagues concluded.

The report is published in the June 2002 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, the journal of the American Public Health Association.

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