The data set that has been provided by an organisation is a sample of the population of smokers in the United Kingdom. The data provides information on age, gender, socio-economic class, whether they are a smoker or not, life stage, marital status, working status, which brand of cigarette they smoke, their average daily consumption, the method(s) they have used to try and give up smoking and a few general questions regarding smoking to answer.
The responses to these questions answered by only a sample of the population can help generalise the rest of the population, evaluate the data and judge its value to the organisation. A comparison has been made from the sample of those who are smokers and non smokers, those of them who are male or female and how old they are. This bar chart shows that clearly there are more female non-smokers than that of male non-smokers according to the sample. However there seems to be more male smokers than there are of female smokers.
According to the National Statistics Figures a bar chart has been drawn up to show the population of Great Britain smokers, men and women, between 2001 and 2005 which agrees with the sample in that there are generally more male smokers in Great Britain than there are of female smokers however the values seem to differ among the different ethnic groups within Britain. According to the sample data people have tried different methods to help them stop smoking, for example acupuncture, nicotine patches, nasal spray, hypnosis and inhalers.
However, only a handful of people from the sample data have attempted to quit smoking. Those who smoke the most cigarettes out of the sample tend to be those that are not married and are unemployed. Due to the ban of advertising cigarettes, which had been introduced in 2002, the ‘hype’ of cigarette smoking had decreased. There used to be quite a few well known cigarette adverts which had implied that smoking was ‘cool’ and trendy, dismissing the fact that it can be life threatening or even fatal. Figure 3 shows the number of males and females who smoked between 1974 and 2002/2003.
The number of adults who smoked cigarettes decreased significantly in the 1970s and the early 1980s – from forty-five per cent in 1974 to thirty-five per cent in 1982. After 1982 the rate of decline dropped and then levelled out from 1992/93, at around twenty-six to twenty-eight per cent. In the 1970s men were far more likely to smoke than women did. In 1974, fifty-one per cent of men and forty-one per cent of women smoked cigarettes. During the 1970s and 1980s the break between men and women narrowed. It has still not disappeared completely but had reduced to two per cent in 2002/03. Smoking has reduced across all age groups.
The largest decrease was among those who were aged fifty and over, from forty per cent in 1974 to nineteen per cent in 2002/03. The decrease was lesser among those aged twenty to twenty-four, dropping from forty-eight per cent to thirty-eight per cent over the same length of time. In 2002/03, twenty-six per cent of adults aged sixteen and over were cigarette smokers in Great Britain – twenty-seven per cent of men and twenty-five per cent of women. The number of adults who smoked was greatest among those who were aged between twenty and twenty-four (thirty-seven per cent of men and thirty-eight per cent of women).
It then gradually declined with increasing age to seventeen per cent of men and fourteen per cent of women aged sixty and over. Although, overall, a larger number of men were smokers to, the same cannot be said for young people aged sixteen to nineteen. In 2002/03, twenty-nine per cent of these young women were cigarette smokers compared with twenty-two per cent of young men. To carry out a literature search related to the data set. This involves using a variety of resources to find journals, books, websites and databases that are in accordance to the subject in interest.
Smoking cessation means the ‘withdrawal of nicotine’ or to quit smoking. Due to the high addiction rates caused by nicotine, giving up the habit can cause headaches, migraines, mood swings and cravings caused by the decrease in tobacco in the body by a nicotine dependent individual. When asked how many cigarettes one might smoke a day, it is usual for the figure to be rounded down to protect privacy especially among young adults when asked by parents which means the survey carried out by the organisation may have obtained inaccurate results.
When taking into account the trends in smoking, it is usually thought that any under-reporting remains invariable over time. However, since the occurrence of smoking has decreased, this hypothesis may not be entirely justified. As smoking has become less acceptable as a social habit, some people may not be so keen as to admit how much they smoke -or, indeed, to admit to smoking at all. In December 1998 Smoking Kills – a White Paper on tobacco was released, which incorporated targets for reducing the occurrence of cigarette smoking among adults in England to twenty-four per cent by 2010.
In 2004, a new Public Service Agreement (PSA) had been agreed by the Department of Health which modified the target further: the intention now is to reduce the commonness of cigarette smoking among adults to twenty-one per cent or less by 2010. Seeing as smoking is estimated to be the cause of about one third of all cancers, reduction or even extinction of smoking is also one of three important duties at the heart of the NHS Cancer Plan, which was published in 2004.
The Cancer Plan especially focuses on the need to lessen the relatively high rates of smoking among those in physical socio-economic groups, which result in much higher death rates from cancer among inexpert workers than among professionals. The Department of health broadcasted a new Public Service Agreement (PSA) target to decrease adult smoking rates in England to twenty-one per cent or less by 2010, with a decline in popularity among routine and manual groups to twenty-six per cent or less.