Fact Sheet 1 - Statistics

The proportion of youth who have never tried smoking continues to increase. 57% of youth have never smoked in 2007, not even a puff ¹

Current Smoking prevalence and neighbourhood deprivation

Adults who lives in the most deprived neighbourhood is three times more likely to be a current smoker than one who lives in the least deprived ².

Current smoking prevalence and deprivation quintile

Ethnicity and current smoking prevalence

The current smoking prevalence among Maori adults is 40.4%, 37% among Maori men and 13.2% among Maori females ³.
 
Maori women are more than twice as likely to be a current smoker than women in the general population. Both Maori men and Pacific men are 1.5 times more likely to be current smokers than men in the total population ⁴.

Current smoking prevalence by ethnicity 2006/07 ⁵ (age-standardised)

There was a significant decrease in daily smoking rate among Maori from 47.2% in 2002/03 to 37.6% in 2006/2007 ⁶. This downward trend in daily smoking is significantly observed among Maori women from 51% to 40.1%; while the daily prevalence of Maori men has also dropped from 34.8% to 42.9% ⁷.

Consumption of manufactured cigarettes and Roll-your-own tobacco

There is an increasing popularity in roll-your-tobacco (loose tobacco) over the past 15 years. In 2005, 27% of tobacco products released were loose tobacco, compared to 12% in 1990 ⁸.

Tobacco products released for consumption in New Zealand, 1990-2005 ⁹.

The prevalence of using roll-your-own tobacco is higher among the younger age groups than the older age ranges.  61% of young smokers aged 15-19 used roll-your-own tobacco while only 33% of smokers in the age group 60-64 consumed loose leaf.  In contrast, 9.1% of the age group 15-19 smoked cigarettes while 9.7% smoked cigarettes. More Maori smokers (60% of total Maori smokers) used roll-your own tobacco while Asian smokers (78%) and Pacific smokers (72%) preferred manufactured cigarette ¹⁰.