Backgrounders
	Health Canada's Tobacco Control Strategy
	Ministerial Advisory Council on Tobacco Control - Terms of reference
	Biographies - Ministerial Advisory Council
	Youth prevention, cessation and denormalization projects
	Tobacco Products Information Regulations - Toxic emissions
	Letter to the tobacco industry

Information

May 2001

Youth statistics

Introduction
In Canadian smoking surveys, the established practice has been to interview only respondents aged 15 years and older. As a result, data on youth aged 15-19 years has been collected and compared across time. Recently, there has been the tendency to compare Canadian smoking data with those of other jurisdictions, especially data for youth. This has led to some confusion as the data in many of these jurisdictions are for youth in different age groups, typically 12-17 year-olds.

In Canada, beginning in 1994/95, data on smoking was collected on respondents aged 12 years and older in the National Population Health Survey. This survey provides data that is comparable to different jurisdictions, such as the United States.

The following are a series of tables presenting smoking data on Canadian youth aged 12-17 and those aged 15-19.

Youth aged 12-17 years

Specifically, prevalence data for daily teen smokers, aged 12-17 years, is presented in Table 1. Trends in the prevalence of daily smokers, aged 12-17 have remained relatively flat (around 10%) since 1994/95. The same trend line seems to hold true for the amount smoked per day by daily smokers in this age group.

Table 1

Youth 12-17	1994/95	1996/97	1998/99
Trends in the Prevalence of Daily Smokers (%)
Both sexes	10	12	10
Males	7	11	10
Females	12	13	10
Trends in Average Cigarettes/Day by Daily Smokers
Both sexes	11	11	12
Males	13	12	11
Females	10	10	12

Sources: 1994/95; 1996/97; & 1998/99 - National Population Health Survey Cycle 1, 2 & 3

Youth aged 15-19 years

With respect to teens, aged 15-19 years, Table 2 shows that prevalence rates for current (daily and occasional) smokers are now 25%, down from 28% in 1999. The rate for teen females (27%) was slightly higher than that for teen males (23%) in 2000.

It is encouraging to note that the amount smoked per day by daily smokers, aged 15-19 years, has declined slightly from 15 cigarettes/day in 1985 to 13 in 2000.

Table 2