Reconstruction of long-term tobacco consumption trends in Australia and their relationship to lung cancer mortality

Abstract

Objectives: Analysis of long-term trends in smoking and causes of death in Australia are prevented by a lack of detailed tobacco consumption data prior to World War II. The objective of this study was to reconstruct data on tobacco consumption in Australia back to 1887 and examine its relationship with population-level lung cancer mortality, corrected for biases and miscoding. Methods: Back-extrapolation techniques and existing tobacco sales data were combined to estimate tobacco consumption prior to the 1940s. The relationship of tobacco and lung cancer mortality was examined with descriptive period and cohort analyses and log-linear Poisson regression models of cumulative cohort consumptio..