A novel tobacco forecasting model by multiple sociodemographic strata in Australia

Abstract

Background: Australia is one of several countries aiming to achieve a commercial tobacco endgame, with a current target of ≤5% daily smoking prevalence by 2030. Like other jurisdictions, the Australian target ignores large variations in smoking across sociodemographic groups and risks perpetuating current smoking-related inequities. To help mitigate this risk, we calculated future smoking rates under business-as-usual for multiple sociodemographic categories and compared them to the endgame target. Methods: We used a simulated annealing optimization approach to estimate historic daily smoking rates in Australia by six dimensions of sex, age, remoteness, index of relative socioeconomic advant..