Last year, 15.8 percent of UK adults smoked, down from 17.2 percent in 2015, according to a story in The Guardian newspaper citing data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The prevalence of adult smoking stands at 15.5 percent in England, a figure that rises to 16.9 percent in Wales, 17.7 percent in Scotland and 18.1 percent in Northern Ireland.
Duncan Selbie, chief executive of Public Health England, said there were now more than half a million fewer smokers in England than in 2015 and that the UK had the second-lowest smoking rate in Europe after Sweden.
“What is really fantastic news is that this steep decline is even greater among young adults [aged 18 to 24], where smoking has fallen by a staggering quarter since 2010, reversing a long trend,” he said
In 2010, 26 percent of the 18-24 age group smoked, but this had dropped to 19 percent in 2016.
“It’s now hard to believe that back in 1974 almost half of adults smoked,” said Selbie. “But now an end really is in sight and we have a real opportunity to virtually eliminate all the harm, misery and death caused by smoking.”
However, Dr. Penny Woods, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation, warned against complacency. Smoking, she said, was still the UK’s biggest cause of early preventable death.
“Approximately 100,000 people die needlessly from smoking-related diseases every year in our hospitals – it’s time to tackle the human and financial cost the tobacco industry creates,” she said.
“These statistics confirm that e-cigarettes are mainly being used to help people quit. Given half of long-term smokers die as a result of their habit, using vaping to help someone stop smoking could literally save their life.”
Across the UK, 5.6 percent of people – around 2.9 million – used e-cigarettes in 2016.