KEY POINTS:
The prevalence of smoking among adults has dropped to a "record low", official figures will show today.
The figures, to be released by Prime Minister Helen Clark, will be a breath of fresh air to smokefree campaigners after a decade of only slight decreases in the adult smoking rate.
Helen Clark's office said yesterdaythat the figures from two surveys would show "record low smoking rates among adults, and a downturn in youth smoking".
Smoking kills about 5000 people a year, including nearly 400 deaths attributed to secondhand smoke.
The adult figures to be released today are from the 2006/07 Health Survey, the largest survey yet of New Zealanders' health, involving 12,488 adults.
"The results show a record low in smoking prevalence and a drop in daily smoking rates," said officials for the Prime Minister and Associate Health Minister Damien O'Connor.
The youth data are from the annual survey of year 10 school students for the group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).
"They show that youth smoking rates are also continuing to trend downwards," the officials said.
The Health Survey repeats two similar surveys in the preceding decade. The earlier surveys found adult daily smoking rates of 25.2 per cent in 1996/97 and 23.4 per cent in 2002/03, although the reduction was not considered statistically significant.
Different surveys can use different methods. Research company ACNielsen's estimates show the adult smoking rate declined from around 36 per cent in 1976 to 23.5 per cent in 2005. The Census showed a reduction from 23.7 per cent in 1996 to 20.7 per cent in 2006.
In the latest ASH year-10 survey, for 2006, 8.2 per cent were daily smokers. The prevalence for boys had declined to 6.2 per cent, from 14.1 per cent in 1999; for girls, the rate was 10.1, down from 17.1 in 1999.
Public health specialist Dr Murray Laugesen last night welcomed news of a significant decline in smoking rates which, for adults, had decreased little since the mid-1990s.
He said graphic pictorial warnings on cigarette packets and an increase in nicotine replacement therapy might be helping to reduce the smoking rate, but they occurred after the survey would have been completed.
"What is perhaps more likely is that the psychological effect of the smokefree workplaces legislation, which came into effect at the end of 2004, has brought about a change in public attitudes to smoking.
"It's seen in a much more negative light. It seems there is widespread agreement that smoking is bad for you. Very few people would argue with that now, whereas as long as smoking was permitted in public areas there was a certain amount of normalisation of smoking."
The ASH report said school students living in homes where smoking was banned inside were less likely to smoke than those in smoky homes.
