High cigarette cost lowers smoking among educated women

LONDON: While less educated women are more responsive to pictorial labels on cigarette packets, chances of kicking the butt among the highly educated goes up along with the cost of cigarettes, says a study.

After analysing 48,755 responses from women in Spanish National Health surveys in 2001, 2003, 2006 and 2011, the team concluded that cigarette prices and pictorial labels are good tools for reducing smoking rates among women.

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"Highly educated women are more sensitive to prices and less educated women to pictorial labels," the expert said.

But pictorial labels have a double value: "They are targeted towards the most vulnerable (less educated women)," said one of the researchers Marta Gil-Lacruz from University of Zaragoza in Spain.

According to the researchers, we must differentiate smoking habits across generations, genders and countries to achieve more effective anti-smoking policies.

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The researchers focused on four different generation cohorts: women born prior to 1950; those born between 1951 and 1964; between 1965 and 1983 and between 1985 and 1999.

In terms of the rates of smoking, women over 65 years old smoke the least, the study said.

However, those between 16 and 50 years old are most likely to smoke, "even if they have high levels of education."

The results appeared in the journal Addictive Behaviours.