At a glance
In Queensland in 2023:
- 416,000 (10.1%) adults smoked daily—229,000 (11.3%) were male and 187,000 (8.9%) were female.
- Daily smoking prevalence was more than three times higher in the most disadvantaged areas compared to the most advantaged areas and more than two times higher in remote areas compared to major cities.
- Adult smoking rates continue to decline halving over the past 20 years.
In 2022–2023, 10,000 (2.8%) of Queensland school children age 12–17 years had smoked at least one cigarette in the previous seven days.
Smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death and disease in Australia. The health impacts of smoking include cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease and many other conditions affecting most body systems.1 Compared to adults who have never smoked, Australian current smokers die on average 10 years earlier and develop age-related diseases 10 years earlier.2,3
According to be most recently available information:
- In 2018, smoking accounted for 8.6% of the total health burden (DALY) in Australia.1
- In 2015–16, the total cost of smoking was estimated at $137 billion, which translates to $27.4 billion based on Queensland’s share of the Australian population. Nationally, tangible costs of $19.2 billion include premature death, hospitalisations, other medical and social costs, workplace absenteeism and tobacco spending. Intangible cost of $118 billion include the value of life lost, pain and suffering.4
Latest results
Adults
In 2023, 10.1% of Queensland adults smoked daily, 4.7% smoked less often than daily, 28.2% were ex-smokers, and 56.9% had never smoked (Figure 1).
Adult daily tobacco smokers were more likely to be:
- male
- older
- live in more disadvantaged or remote areas.
Among the 4.7% of Queensland adults who smoked less than daily, 1.9% smoked at least once a week (but not daily) and 2.8% smoked occasionally (less than once a week).
Never smokers were more likely to be:
- female
- younger
- live in more advantaged and more urban areas.
Adult smoking cessation
In Queensland, almost two-thirds (65.6%) of adult ever smokers were not currently smoking tobacco in 2023. Among Queenslanders who had smoked, older adults were more likely to have quit smoking than younger adults. This result needs to be interpreted considering smoking-related mortality was higher in the older age groups, and quit attempts are more likely among older smokers.
Figure 1: Smoking status of Queensland adults, 2023
Children and young people
In 2022–2023, 81.4% of Queensland secondary school students had never used tobacco, 10.4% had tried a few puffs of tobacco, 6.3% had smoked less than 100 cigarettes and 2.0% had smoked 100 cigarettes or more.
More than 1-in-10 (10.5%) Queensland high school students had smoked tobacco in the previous 12 months while 2.8% had smoked tobacco in the previous week.
Figure 2: Smoking status of Queensland school students, 2022–2023
Trends
Adults
The Queensland daily smoking prevalence halved from 2002 to 2023 (50.6% decrease over the entire period).
The decrease in the number of daily smokers was greater among younger adults than older adults, and among adults living in the most socioeconomically advantaged areas than those in the most disadvantaged areas. There was no difference in the rate of change among males and females.
The proportion of smokers who have quit smoking increased by 9.7% from 2009 to 2023 (from 58.5% to 65.6%). There was no evidence that quit rates varied by sociodemographic characteristics. This indicates that declines in overall smoking prevalence are driven largely by reductions in smoking uptake.
Figure 3: Queensland adult smoking trends
Children and young people
The prevalence of Australian secondary school students who had ever smoked tobacco significantly declined by 22% from 2017 to 2022–2023 (from 18% to 14%). This was driven by declines among older students (16 to 17 years) who have ever smoked in 2017 compared to 2022–2023 (31% vs 20%). This difference was similar for male and female students.5 Among Queensland students, the prevalence of ever smoking decreased from 22.9% to 18.6% from 2017 to 2022–2023.
National comparisons
In 2022, the Queensland age-standardised adult daily smoking prevalence was higher than national results (14.0% compared to 10.6%) and Queensland ranked 1st (highest) among the jurisdictions.6
Additional information
Data and statistics
Visit the following websites for more information about tobacco smoking:
- Tobacco in Australia
- Summary QPHS results for Hospital and Health Services and other regions can be found within this report at Our regions and more detailed and historical results can be accessed at Queensland Preventive health surveys.
Information and strategies
Visit the following websites for more information about tobacco strategies, legislation and resources to stop smoking:
- The Department of Health and Aged Care - National Tobacco Strategy
- Queensland Health - Smoking laws in Queensland
- Queensland government - Quit HQ
- Cancer Council Queensland - Harmful effects of smoking.
Section technical notes
Counts of people by modifiable risk factors are estimated by applying the indicator prevalence to the relevant estimated resident population (ERP). More information about ERP is available from the Australian Bureau of Statistics
- National, state and territory population.
- Data on government and non-government students,staff and schools.
Where presented, ratios were calculated using higher precision estimates than in text. Ratios calculated using estimates in text may differ.
Prevalence statistics reported for a time period, such as the previous seven days, should be interpreted as a proportion of the entire population, unless otherwise stated. These should be interpreted independently and not summed.
Data for this section were sourced from:
- the Queensland preventive health survey (QPHS) (See Queensland Preventive health surveys for further information)
- the Australian Secondary School Alcohol and Drugs Survey (ASSAD) (See Australian secondary school students alcohol and drug survey for further information). A smaller sample size (10,314 students nationally) was achieved in 2022-2023 than in past years.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics National Health Survey 2022 (See National Health Survey 2022 for further information).
References
- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. 2021. Australian Burden of Disease Study: Impact and causes of illness and death in Australia 2018, Australian Burden of Disease Study series no. 23. Cat. no. BOD 29. Canberra: AIHW, doi:10.25816/5PS1-J259.
- Banks E, Joshy G, Weber MF, et al. 2015. Tobacco smoking and all-cause mortality in a large Australian cohort study: findings from a mature epidemic with current low smoking prevalence, BMC Medicine, 13(1):38, doi:10.1186/s12916-015-0281-z.
- Jha P and Peto R. 2014. Global Effects of Smoking, of Quitting, and of Taxing Tobacco, New England Journal of Medicine, 370(1):60–68, doi:10.1056/NEJMra1308383.
- Whetton S, Tait RJ, Scollo M, et al. 2019. Identifying the social costs of tobacco use to Australia in 2015/16, National Drug Research Institute, Perth, https://apo.org.au/node/264631, accessed 14 September 2022.
- Scully M, Bain E, Koh, Ian, et al. 2023. ASSAD 2022/2023: Australian secondary school students’ use of tobacco and e-cigarettes, Cancer Council Victoria, Melbourne, https://www.health.gov.au/resources/collections/australian-secondary-school-students-alcohol-and-drug-survey, accessed 21 December 2023.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2023. National Health Survey (NHS) 2022, https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/health-conditions-and-risks/national-health-survey/latest-release, accessed 10 April 2024.