Definition: share of the population aged 15 and over reporting daily smoking. The data come from the National Health Surveys carried out by the Scientific Institute of Public Health/Sciensano that makes them available, in particular to the WHO. Since these data are based on surveys, a margin of uncertainty should be taken into account. This margin of uncertainty increases as the indicator is calculated on smaller sub-populations. The Sciensano website presents these data with their confidence intervals. The data used here for the international comparison are drawn from the WHO Report, which publishes the results of calculations based on the Health Surveys of different countries.

Goal: the share of daily smokers must be reduced to 13.2% by 2030.

The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs adopted by the UN in 2015 include target 3.a: "Strengthen the implementation of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in all countries, as appropriate".

The 2013 World Health Assembly (WHO, 2013) adopted a "Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases 2013-2020” which includes as global target a "relative reduction by 30% in prevalence of current tobacco use among people aged 15 years or older” by 2025. Considering that the WHO global target is enforceable in each country, the share of daily smokers, which was 18.9% in Belgium in 2013, should reach 13.2% in 2025, which requires a considerable acceleration in the rate of decline. As no target is available for 2030, it is considered that this ambitious reduction target for the daily smokers remains the one to be achieved by 2030.

International comparison: countries close to Belgium have an equivalent proportion of smokers and show a similar trend, i.e. a slow decrease.

UN indicator: the selected indicator corresponds to indicator 3.a.1 - Age-standardized prevalence of current tobacco use among persons aged 15 years and older (comparative rates by age).

Sources

• General

  • SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals: United Nations (2015), Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015, document A/RES/70/1.

  • Indicators: United Nations (2017), Work of the Statistical Commission pertaining to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 6 July 2017, document A/RES/71/313.

  • UN Sustainable Development: https://sdgs.un.org/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).

  • UN Sustainable Development Goal indicators website: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/ (consulted on 18/01/2023)

• Specific

  • WHO (2013), Sixty – sixth world health assembly, resolutions and decisions, document WHA66/2013/REC/1

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