Survey finds link between smoking and many health disorders lacking

GRAPHIC images showing victims of heart disease, emphysema and strokes on cigarette packs need updating to maintain their public health effectiveness, researchers say.

GRAPHIC images on cigarette packs need updating to maintain their public health effectiveness, researchers say.

A survey of more than 1800 Australians found awareness about the link between smoking and more than 20 health conditions ranged from 27 per cent for rheumatoid arthritis to 91 per cent for lung cancer.

The researchers, led by ­Professor Melanie Wakefield, of Cancer Council Victoria, found awareness was generally high for smoking harms featured on Australian cigarette packets in the previous five years, including heart disease (86 per cent), emphysema (86 per cent) and stroke (82 per cent).

Researchers say graphic images on cigarette packets need updating more often.

“Graphic health warnings on tobacco products are a critical component of comprehensive tobacco control programs and highly cost-effective for increasing knowledge about the harms of tobacco,” they wrote in an article published in Medical Journal of Australia today.

But they said the warnings needed to be updated regularly.

Graphic health warnings that have been on Australian cigarette packs since 2012 are under review. The researchers said an important factor in deciding which smoking harms should be highlighted was population awareness and identifying those with the greatest potential for knowledge gains.

The study of smokers, former smokers and nonsmokers found that in nine of the 23 conditions listed, less than two-thirds of those surveyed were aware that smoking was a risk factor, including stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, infertility in women and erectile dysfunction in men.

“Awareness was generally highest among never smokers, but the relative ordering of the 23 conditions from highest to lowest was similar for all groups,” the researchers said.