Looking at the general data on cigarette consumption, the PASSI survey shows that the acute phase of the Covid-19 pandemic has passed but the effects on some behaviours, such as smoking habits, are still present. In 2020 in the province of Modena, as well as at regional and national level, there was an increase of tobacco consumption – particularly among women and people with economic hardship and low levels of education – that it has interrupted the downward trend that has been going on for several years. In the two-year period 2021-2022 in the province of Modena, there was a return to the levels of 2019: if on the one hand, therefore, there is a drop compared to the pandemic, on the other, no progress has been made.
Ben 117 thousand people, in the 18-69 age group, smoke cigarettes (in the PASSI survey a person who has smoked more than 100 cigarettes in their life and who still smokes or has stopped smoking for at least 6 months is considered a smoker) and in the 18 age group -24 years smokers are 31% of the total. Unfortunately, the habit of smoking starts earlier and earlier: from the HBSC (Health Behavior in school-aged children) survey on teenagers it emerges that in Emilia-Romagna 1% of 11-year-olds smoke cigarettes, 6% of 13-year-olds and 24% of 15-year-olds.
“The PASSI 2021-2022 survey, together with the other population surveys (PASSI d’Argento, HBSC, GYTS) indicates that smoking addiction is still too widespread at all ages and provide various elements of concern – points out Giuliano Carrozzi Director of the Epidemiology and Risk Communication Service – among the various data, it is worrying that adolescents encounter tobacco too early both as traditional cigarettes and with heated tobacco devices, and that they make an incremental use of electronic cigarettes with nicotine. In general, he is concerned that during the first year of the pandemic the downward trend reabsorbed by a large part of the population but not by all was interrupted: values of high tobacco dependence persist in people with socio-economic disadvantage, probably the phenomenon is also due to the economic crisis”