ArticleTobacco control2011
Smoking prevalence in the European Union: a comparison of national and transnational prevalence survey methods and results.
Article in Tobacco control, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Beyond MPOWER: a systematic review of population-level factors that affect European tobacco smoking rates.European journal of public health · 2023Pooled it
- Electronic nicotine delivery system (electronic cigarette) awareness, use, reactions and beliefs: a systematic review.Tobacco control · 2014Pooled it
- Group hypnotherapy versus group relaxation for smoking cessation: an RCT study protocol.BMC public health · 2012Trial
- Relevance and challenges of exposome studies for environmental health research.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2026Review
- Impact of tobacco control policies on socioeconomic inequalities in smoking prevalence and quit ratios: an ecological study in the European Union (2009-2020).BMJ public health · 2025Article
- Mapping indicators of tobacco and related product use: Unveiling challenges and variations in the Eurobarometer surveys over three decades.Tobacco induced diseases · 2025Article
- Classifying European cigarette consumption trajectories from 1970 to 2015.Tobacco control · 2023Article
- Developing a novel e-cigarette regulatory and policy control scale: results from the European Union.Drugs (Abingdon, England) · 2022Article
- Who Smokes in Europe? Data From 12 European Countries in the TackSHS Survey (2017-2018).Journal of epidemiology · 2021Article
- Factors associated with abstinence after a recent smoking cessation attempt across 28 European Union member states.Tobacco prevention & cessation · 2021Article
- Asymmetric behavior of tobacco consumption in Spain across the business cycle: a long-term regional analysis.International journal of health economics and management · 2020Article
- Diffusion of the Italian social media campaign against smoking on a social network and YouTube.Journal of preventive medicine and hygiene · 2020Article
- The Prevalence of Tobacco and E-Cigarette Use in Poland: A 2019 Nationwide Cross-Sectional Survey.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Article
- Impact of tobacco control policies on smoking prevalence and quit ratios in 27 European Union countries from 2006 to 2014.Tobacco control · 2019Article
- Time and age trends in smoking cessation in Europe.PloS one · 2019Article
- Evidence from SINPHONIE project: Impact of home environmental exposures on respiratory health among school-age children in Romania.The Science of the total environment · 2018Article
- Impact of the financial crisis on COPD burden: Greece as a case study.European respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society · 2018Review
- Secondhand smoke risk perception and smoke-free rules in homes: a cross-sectional study in Barcelona (Spain).BMJ open · 2017Article
- Association between smoking behaviour and genetic variants of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor.Journal of genetics · 2016Article
- Current and past smoking patterns in a Central European urban population: a cross-sectional study in a high-burden country.BMC public health · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesTo determine whether the European Commission Eurobarometer survey of 27 European Union (EU) member states produces reliable smoking prevalence estimates when compared to national prevalence survey data, and to identify approaches to standardising the measurement of smoking prevalence in the EU.
methodsThis was a direct comparison of questions, sampling methods and smoking prevalence estimates, between the 2006 Eurobarometer study and contemporaneous national surveys. All 27 EU member states were included. Participants were people surveyed in the 2006 Eurobarometer study and in various national surveys in the closest year to 2006 for which data were available. The main outcome measures were the mean and range of differences in prevalence estimates between the Eurobarometer and national surveys.
resultsMost national surveys used similar multistage sampling methods and involved sample sizes of 3000 or more, but the phrasing of the questions used to define smoking, the inclusion or exclusion of occasional smokers, the age ranges of participants and the frequency of national surveys varied substantially between countries. The Eurobarometer study used the same questions in all countries but in sample sizes of 1000, or in 3 countries, 500. Eurobarometer 2006 smoking prevalence estimates were on average 0.37 percentage points higher than those in national surveys, but with a 95% range from -10.49 to +11.23 percentage points. At the extremes, the equivalent national prevalence estimate for Slovakia was 13.0% higher and for the UK 10.0% lower than the Eurobarometer figure.
conclusionsMeasurements of the prevalence of smoking, the biggest avoidable public health threat in the European Union, are highly discrepant within countries between national and European Commission survey estimates. Monitoring national smoking prevalence on a regular basis, using standardised methods in representative population samples, is an urgent priority for the EU.
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