The incidence of smoking in Denmark increased significantly last year for the first time in two decades, according to a story in The Local Denmark.
Figures based on an annual survey of smoking habits conducted among 5,017 people, showed an increase in the number of people who smoked regularly from 21.1 percent of the population in 2016 to 23.1 percent last year.
Sporadic, small increases in smoking had in recent decades broken up an overall trend towards lower numbers, but the figures now showed a tangible increase, concluded the report, which was conducted by the Danish Health Authority (Sundhedsstyrelsen) and three other organizations.
Niels Them Kjær, a project manager with the Danish Cancer Society (Kræftens Bekæmpelse), called the findings of the report a “catastrophe”.
“It is terrible that we will, also in the future, see many Danish people die of cancer,” Kjær said.
Almost 5,000 people died annually in Denmark due to smoking-related cancer, Kjær said.
Higher prices and stricter marketing regulation, as well as increasing the number of no-smoking areas, were key to breaking the “upward curve” of smoking in Denmark.
“We can see that this is what works for our neighbors,” he said.
Denmark’s neighbors Sweden, Norway and Finland have not shown statistical increases in their incidences of smoking.
The Minister of Health Ellen Trane Nørby reportedly told Politiken that discussion of smoking should not be simplified to talking about the cost of a pack of cigarettes. “An overall cultural change in society is needed to push this curve downwards,” Nørby said.