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Excerpts from Smoking closes 'mortality gap'

BY IAN MURRAY, Times of London [01/13/99]

MEN are beginning to close the mortality gap with women, largely because they are more successful at giving up smoking.

The latest set of statistics were collected by the Faculty and Institute of Actuaries, which monitors death rates to help to determine life insurance premiums. Its figures, based on the numbers of policyholders who died between 1991 and 1994, show that the average life expectancy for men since 1978 has increased by 14 per cent, while women's has increased only 12 per cent.

The mortality rate for women who smoked was twice as high as the rate for non-smokers while for men it was 1.7 times higher. This means that on average a 30-year-old woman smoker will die seven years sooner than a non-smoker while a 30-year-old male smoker will die 5.5 years sooner than a male non-smoker. Since 1990, when the actuaries last collected information on smoking, the proportion of men who smoked fell from 31 per cent to 25 per cent while the number of female smokers fell from 25 per cent to 21 per cent. The majority of men who smoked were older than 40 but the majority of women who smoked were under 40.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest that the mortality gap between the sexes will narrow by 2½ months over the next 25 years.

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