Tobacco.org

• Smoke Signals in Cali 

Synopsis in English: Here's a snapshot of just how bad tobacco dependence is in some parts of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Late last week the Municipal Secretary of Health for Colombia's second largest city, Cali (pop. 2.2 million), released the results of a recent study on risk factors for chronic non-communicable diseases . . . The study found that (1) the average age overall for starting smoking is seven, although there are some males that begin even earlier; (2) 53.7% of Cali men have smoked at some point in their life, while only 24.5% of Cali women have; (3) the prevalence of smoking differs by gender, 7.5% for women, 24.9% for men; (4) tobacco consumption prevalence increases with age up until you hit the 30-44 age bracket — from 13.3% for those under 24 years old to 24.2% for the 24-30 bracket — then falls to under 15% for those 45 and older.

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