The historical decline of tobacco smoking among Australian physicians: 1964–1997

A comprehensive review of all published manuscripts describing tobacco usage rates and tobacco control activities in the Australian medical profession between 1964 and 1997.Some of the earliest surveys revealed that around one-quarter of Australian physicians were smoking in the mid twentieth century, a rate which rapidly declined in the 1970s and 1980s, with reductions beyond that achieved by the general population.Overall, our review suggests that not only do contemporary Australian physicians smoke at very low rates when compared internationally, but that an active professional community can also make a real difference to the lifestyle choices of its own members.Tobacco control represents a key facet of public health. Worldwide, smoking is the second most common cause of death and the fourth most common risk factor for disease. If smoking trends continue at the current rate, tobacco will be causing approximately 10 million deaths per annum by the year 2020, with around 650 million fatalities overall [1]. Global tobacco control is therefore very important, a realization which led to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC), an evidence-based treaty focusing on demand reduction and tobacco supply issues from a global perspective [2]. At a local level, individual physicians and scientists have often been at the forefront of tobacco control, due to the now well-known links between smoking and ill-health, as well as the direct evidence of sick patients whom they treat in daily practice. Physicians themselves have also played a key role in tobacco research, with one of the earliest epidemiological studies linking tobacco smoking with adverse health outcomes being conducted among a group of British doctors [3]. So groundbreaking was the original investigation by Doll and colleagues that it was republished 50 years later [4] and remains a cornerstone of preventive medicine literature [5-7]. Being on the frontlines of primary health