Smoking Deaths Appear to Be Rising. Here's the Real Reason

Smokers aren't necessarily facing deadlier cigarettes today, but they are getting older. A new analysis of federal health data finds that while the chance of a smoker dying from a smoking-related cause appeared to jump almost 50% between 1987 and 2013, that spike is largely an illusion created by age. Researcher Ralph Lawton and colleagues used National Health Interview Survey data tied to death records and found that at the same given age, the association between smoking and mortality has barely budged in recent decades. The apparent climb in risk stems from who still smokes: in other words, fewer young people, and more middle-aged and older adults.

Adult smoking rates have plunged from more than 40% in the 1960s to about 12% in 2022, with youth smoking now under 4% as of 2021, per Newsweek. Those who continue to smoke are disproportionately 45 to 64, a group more prone to serious illness and death in the first place, which skews population-wide risk estimates upward. The study concludes that smoking remains a major, preventable killer, but models that track its harms need to factor in the aging smoker population to avoid overstating rising danger. Plus, "according to the authors, similar methods could be used to examine the effects of other risk factors that vary with age, potentially including obesity, poor diet, or lack of education," notes a release.