Scottish Public Health Observatory quarterly update
December 2019

About this release

This release by Information Services Division (ISD) provides the Scottish Public Health Observatory (ScotPHO) quarterly update on a number of topic areas. Of these topics the tobacco use pages contain updated data.

Background

The Scottish Public Health Observatory (external website) collaboration is co-led by ISD Scotland and NHS Health Scotland, and includes the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, National Records of Scotland, Health Protection Scotland, the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit and the Scottish Learning Disabilities Observatory.

The aim of the collaboration is to make public health information more accessible, to promote the reduction in inequalities and to inform health improvement in Scotland.

Main points

Tobacco use

Smoking attributable deaths

• Smoking remains a leading cause of preventable disease and premature death. In 2018 smoking accounted for an estimated 9,360 deaths (308 deaths per 100,000 population) in those aged 35 and over in Scotland.
• The rate of smoking-attributable deaths has fallen among all age groups since 2003, with the largest decreases (absolute) in the older age groups.
• Both genders showed a decrease in the rate of smoking-attributable deaths across the full time period (2003-2018).

Smoking attributable admissions

• There has been a decrease in the estimated rate of smoking-attributable admissions between 2008 and 2018.
• The estimated rate of smoking-attributable hospital admissions has fallen in all age groups since 2008.

Further information

All the topic areas updated will be available on the ScotPHO website (external website).

Open data for this publication is available from the Scottish Health and Social Care open data portal (external website).

The next release of this publication will be June 2020.