Study of 46 Countries Reveals Many Smokers Still Don't Understand the Dangers of Cigarettes for the Heart

Illustration of cigarettes: Pexels.

JAKARTA - After two decades of tobacco control campaigns, many smokers still do not understand the risks of cigarettes to the heart and blood vessels. A study of more than 240,000 smokers in 46 countries shows that knowledge about the dangers of cigarettes to the heart is still lagging behind the risk of lung cancer.

Euronews quoted Friday, August 14, saying the findings came from an international study published in the journal BMJ Open. Researchers analyzed surveys conducted from 2002 to 2022.

More than 90 percent of respondents know that smoking can cause lung cancer. However, only about 80 percent know that heart disease is also one of the consequences of smoking.

Even fewer understand the risk of stroke as well as the dangers of exposure to cigarette smoke for non-smokers.

The study found that understanding of the health impact of smoking has barely improved over the past two decades. This condition occurs even though various countries have implemented tobacco control policies, pictorial health warnings, and public health campaigns.

"The knowledge gap about the major effects of smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke is very worrying," said Janet Chung-Hall, researcher at the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project or ITC Project at the University of Waterloo and lead author of the study, as quoted by Euronews.

Research data comes from the International Tobacco Control Project and the Global Adult Tobacco Survey of the World Health Organization or WHO.

Smoking is associated with more than 2 million deaths from cardiovascular disease in the world every year.

Cardiovascular disease is a disorder of the heart and blood vessels, including heart disease and stroke. This disease is the leading cause of premature death due to non-communicable diseases in the world. Smoking is one of the risk factors that can be prevented.

Findings in Europe are also not uniform. Awareness that smoking causes lung cancer has increased significantly in the Netherlands, but has decreased in a number of countries, including Germany, France, and Romania.

On some indicators, knowledge about the dangers of exposure to cigarette smoke also decreased in Germany, France, and the Netherlands.

"Knowledge is an important first step to quitting smoking and protecting others from secondhand smoke," said Geoffrey T. Fong, lead researcher of the ITC Project and professor of psychology and public health sciences at the University of Waterloo, quoted by Euronews.

According to Fong, the government needs to strengthen public education on a sustainable basis regarding the risks of smoking and exposure to cigarette smoke, both for cardiovascular disease and cancer.

A number of European countries are now tightening tobacco and nicotine rules, especially to curb use among young people.

Britain in April passed anti-tobacco laws that permanently restrict the sale of tobacco products to those born in or after 2008.

Belgium and Latvia have banned the sale of disposable e-cigarettes since January 2025. Spain and France have also tightened smoking rules in a number of open public spaces.

The European Commission is targeting a smoking rate of less than 5 percent by 2040. Currently the figure is around 25 percent.

According to the WHO, tobacco use causes more than 7 million deaths each year in the world. More than 1.6 million of them are people who do not smoke but are exposed to cigarette smoke.