Smoking Prevalence

This page includes data and a summary of smoking prevalence.

Areas included: England, South East, Surrey, Surrey Local Authorities.

Latest data included: 2020* (next data release: expected Winter 2022).

*Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 survey could not undertake the usual sampling procedure and so collected fewer survey responses and used telephone interviews. The data producers therefore DO NOT recommend using the 2020 figures to compare with the previous time series. This is because the change in methodology in 2020 is said to have caused the estimates to be lower than reality.

Summary

These figures are from the Annual Population Survey by the Office for National Statistics and so are estimates rather than actual counts.

Around 10 per cent of Surrey’s adult residents are estimated to be current smokers, around 25 per cent are estimated to be ex-smokers, and over 60 per cent are estimated to have never smoked. The percentages of persons who are current smokers has been declining in Surrey over time.

Surrey has had consistently lower proportions of adults who are estimated to be current smokers than the South East and England.

The estimated smoking prevalence in 2011 to 2019*

Men have a higher prevalence of being current smokers than women in Surrey (and in England as a whole). Nonetheless, the estimates of current smokers show that there have been declines for both men and women over time. Surrey men and women have lower estimates of current smoking than the South East estimates for men and women.

The estimated smoking prevalence in 2011 to 2019* by sex

As the smoking prevalence trends are based on survey data, they become less reliable when looking at smaller geographies. A three-year average of smoking prevalence has been calculated to observe the local authority figures in the graph below. In 2018 to 2020, ten out of the eleven local authorities in Surrey have lower percentages than the South East and England of the adult population who are estimated to be current smokers. Runnymede is the only local authority in Surrey which has a higher prevalence of current smokers than both the South East and England.

The estimated smoking prevalence by local authority, three-year averages, 2018-2020

Source: https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/tobacco-control