Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

E2: Environmental statistics and accounts; sustainable development.

e-mail contact : ESTAT-SDG-MONITORING@ec.europa.eu. 

The indicator is part of the EU Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicator set. It is used to monitor progress towards SDG 3 on good health and well-beingwhich is embedded in the European Commission’s Priorities under the 'European Green Deal', 'An economy that works for people' and 'Promoting our European way of life'.

SDG 3 aims to ensure health and well-being for all at all ages by improving reproductive, maternal and child health; ending the epidemics of major communicable diseases; reducing non-communicable and mental diseases. SDG 3 also calls for reducing behavioural (drugs and alcohol abuse, tobacco) as well as environmental health risk factors (traffic accidents, chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and contamination).

The indicator can be considered as similar to global SDG indicator 3.a.1 "Age-standardized prevalence of current tobacco use among persons aged 15 years and older".

A new Tobacco Products Directive, adopted in February 2014, lays down rules governing the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco and related products. The Directive, which became applicable in EU countries on 20 May 2016, requires large mandatory combined health warnings on cigarette packages, bans all promotional and misleading elements on tobacco products, and prohibits cigarettes with characterising flavours, such as fruit or candy.

From a public health perspective, the Directive aims to protect citizens from the hazardous effects of smoking and other forms of tobacco consumption, by helping them to quit or not to start smoking at all.

The indicator measures the share of the population aged 15 years and over who report that they currently smoke boxed cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos or a pipe. The data does not include use of other tobacco products such as electronic cigarettes and snuff. The data are collected through a Eurobarometer survey and are based on self-reports during face-to-face interviews in people’s homes.

% of population aged 15 or over

Calendar year.

Indicator from non-ESS source.

DG SANTE (Eurobarometer)

Data source: Eurobarometer Survey

Data provider: European Commission’s Directorate-General Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE)

Every 3+ years

Indicator is updated every 3 years.

T+2 years

New data points are disseminated 3-4 months after data collection.

All EU MS

Data are presented for all EU Member States.

All EU MS

Data are comparable between all EU Member States.

> 10 years

Data points for 2006, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2017, 2020

> 4 data points

Length of comparable time series without methodological breaks is longer than 4 data points.

Analysis of indicator is presented in Eurostat's annual monitoring report on Sustainable development in the EU (progress towards SDGs in the EU context).

See table  sdg_03_30

Eurostat dedicated section on SDGs: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/sdi/overview

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