The impact of smoking on mortality and life expectancy of the Swiss population

The elaboration of new mortality tables by the Swiss statistical office has allowed to estimate the impact of different pathology or risk factors on the average life duration of the resident population in Switzerland. Thus, attributable death of the smoking habits have for effect to decrease the life expectancy of swiss citizens of 2.9 years for men and 0.7 years for women, for the period 1988/1993. The calculation of mortality rates attributable to this factor of risk shows nevertheless that the risk of death has decreased since the end of years 1960 for all quinquennial age groups between 35 and 74 years. The smoking habits would be responsible of approximately 16% of deaths observed in the swiss population and 20% of premature deaths (between 25 and 64 years). The present analysis shows furthermore that different evolutions of the mortality associated with the smoking habits characterize men and women.