[Smoking impact on mortality in Spain in 2012]

Smoking is an important public health problem, and is one of the main avoidable causes of morbidity and early mortality. The aim was to estimate the mortality attributable to smoking and its impact on premature mortality in Spain in the year 2012.

Descriptive, cross-sectional study, carried out on the Spanish population aged ≥ 18 years in 2012. The prevalence of smoking by age and sex was obtained from the National Health Survey 2011-2012, and the number of deaths by age, sex and cause was obtained from the vital statistics of the National Institute of Statistics. The proportion of deaths attributable to smoking was calculated according to sex and age group, from the etiological fraction of the population. Likewise, loss of potential years of life lost (PYLL) and the mean potential years of life lost (MPYLL) were also calculated.

In 2012, smoking caused 60,456 deaths which accounted for 15.23% of all deaths. Trachea-bronchial-lung cancer in men and other cardiopathies in women mostly contributed to this mortality. The PYLL were 184,426, and the MPYLL were 3.25 years in men and 2.42 years in women.

In 2012, every day, 125 men and 40 women die from smoking-related conditions. The smoking prevalence has diminished in comparison with previous years and the number and percentage of deaths attributable to the smoking have increased in the last 20 years.