BACKGROUND: Smoking is a leading global risk factor, responsible for 6.18 million deaths and 142 million years of life lost in 2021, with 85% of deaths occurring among males. A recent analysis reported that eliminating all future smoking could increase global life expectancy at birth (LEX) by 1.5 years among males by 2050. In our analysis, we seek to identify the countries where elimination of smoking could have the largest impact on LEX in males as well as where elimination could close the gap between LEX in males and females.
METHODS: We leveraged IHME’s future health scenarios platform to forecast LEX under two future scenarios: (1) a Reference scenario that is a probabilistic forecast of the most likely future given past trends and (2) an Elimination 2023 scenario in which smoking prevalence is eliminated from 2023 onward. Taking the difference between these scenarios allows us to capture the forecasted health effects under the Reference scenario that are attributable to future smoking.
RESULTS: The three countries with the greatest gains in LEX among males in 2050 under the Elimination 2023 scenario relative to the Reference are Armenia, Kiribati, and Kyrgyzstan. Our forecasts of male LEX in 2050 suggests that males could live an additional 3.38, 3.32, and 3.12 years if all future smoking were eliminated. Under our Reference scenario, in 2050 male LEX will be greater than female LEX in two countries. If no future smoking occurred, we forecast that the gap between male and female LEX would close in eight additional countries across North Africa and the Middle East, South Asia, and Oceania.
CONCLUSIONS: With elimination of smoking, it may be possible to narrow the gap in LEX between males and females. Tobacco policies must be strengthened and expanded to ensure that LEX continues to increase.