In 2018 the current smoking rate for the Central Coast was recorded as 10.4% after several years of fluctuation in the smoking rate, down as low as 9.4% in 2017, and as high as 20.7% in 2004. There were 3927 smoking attributable hospitalisations in 2017/18 and 438 smoking attributable deaths in 2016. According to 2017 data, 32.6% of Aboriginal women and 12.4% of non-Aboriginal women smoked during their pregnancy.
*NSW Tobacco Strategy is now outdated (ended in 2017). A new strategy is pending.
The death toll in Australia from smoking will pass the one million mark within this decade. More than 900,000 Australians have already died prematurely because they smoked. Tobacco has been labelled one of the great killers of the twentieth century, causing unnecessary death, disease and disability on a large scale. Tobacco adversely affects almost every organ in the body. Evidence about the dangers of tobacco continues to mount. Smoking greatly increases the risk of many cancers and is a major cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and ischaemic heart disease.
It is also clear that exposure to second-hand smoke involves adverse health effects including an increased risk of asthma and sudden infant death syndrome for children.
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