At the approach of World Tobacco Day on May 31, Public Health France (SPF) published on Tuesday a study devoted to “perceptions of smoking among 18-75 year olds”, based on a telephone survey carried out in 2022, whose responses were compared to the data of several barometer of the organization, going up until 2005.
It appears that in 2022, two thirds of the 3,229 people interviewed estimated that “the company disapproves of smoking” and that more than one in two (52.6%) thought that at present “we are less well accepted when one is a smoker”.
Almost nine out of ten smokers (86.3%) agreed with the assertion: “People who matter to you think you shouldn’t smoke”.
This development seems to reflect “a reduction in social standards favorable to smoking” between 2005 and 2022 in France, that it will be necessary to confirm “during future surveys, write the authors of the study.
However, “some signs seem to indicate a inverse” recent, they note.
Thus in 2022, “27.3% of people agreed with the +smoking assertion made it possible to be more comfortable in a group +, against 21.7% in 2017”. It was 37.1% in 2005. This proportion dropped from 2005 to 2010 and then stabilized from 2010 to 2017, before reassembling from 2017 to 2022.
Also, “younger individuals and with a lower level of diploma are more inclined to perceive smoking as a socially acceptable behavior”: only 29% of 18-34 year olds believe that “we are less well accepted when we are a smoker”, against 53% of 35-54 year olds and 70% of the 55-75 years, according to the survey.
And the idea that “the company disapproves of smoking” is associated with a level of diploma higher than the bac and an individual income greater than 1,800 euros per month, also reveals the survey.
These variations in perceptions according to socio -demographic characteristics reflect a persistence of social inequalities linked to smoking which must be taken into account to better target campaigns and prevention interventions, concludes SPF.