Smoking incidence increases in Taiwan

The incidence of smoking in Taiwan last year, at 17.1 percent, was up by 0.7 of a percentage point from that of 2014, 16.4 percent, according to a story in The China Post.

This was the first year-on-year increase in seven years, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) reported.

The 17.1 percent incidence translates into a smoking population of 3.27 million in 2015, an increase of 170,000 from the previous year, said Lo Su-ying, head of the HPA’s Health Education and Tobacco Control Division.

The smoking rate among men rose from 29.2 percent in 2014 to 29.9 percent in 2015, while the rate among women increased from 3.5 percent to 4.2 percent, Lo said.

She said that the availability in Taiwan of ‘cheap’ cigarettes was possibly one reason behind the increase in the country’s smoking rate.