Abstract
Understanding whether the population-level consumption of alcohol and tobacco is associated with cancer mortality is a crucial question for public health policy that has not been answered by previous studies. To examine temporal associations of alcohol and tobacco consumption with overall cancer mortality in the Australian population, looking across different sex and age groups. This population-based cohort study conducted a time series analysis (autoregressive integrated moving average models) using aggregate-level annual time series data from multiple sources. Data on alcohol consumption and tobacco consumption per capita between 1935 and 2014 among the Australian population aged 15 years and older were collected from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Cancer Council Victoria. Analysis was conducted from June 1, 2017, to October 30, 2017. Sex- and age-specific cancer mortality rates from 1968 to 2014 were collected from the Australian Institute Health and Welfare. Population-level cancer mortality in different sex and age groups in Australia, controlling for the effects of health expenditure. Among the Australian total population aged 15 years and older in this study, 50.5% were women. Cancer death rates per 100 000 persons increased from 199 in 1968 to 214 in 1989 and then decreased steadily to 162 in 2014. Taking into account lagged effects, 1-L decreases in alcohol consumption per capita were associated with a decline of 3.9% in overall cancer mortality over a 20-year period, and 1-kg decreases in tobacco consumption per capita were associated with a 16% reduction. Alcohol consumption per capita was significantly associated with overall cancer mortality among men aged 50 to 69 years and women aged 50 years and older. Tobacco consumption per capita was found to be significantly associated with overall cancer mortality only among men aged 50 years and older. In this study, alcohol consumption per capita was positively associated with overall cancer mortality among older men and women, and tobacco consumption per capita was positively associated with overall cancer mortality among older men over a 20-year period. This study provides evidence that a decrease in population-level drinking and tobacco smoking could lead to a reduction in cancer mortality.
Highlights
Two systematic reviews of scientific literature on alcohol, tobacco, and cancer diseases published by the World Cancer Research Fund in 20071 and the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 20122 concluded that long-term alcohol and tobacco consumption increases risk of cancer of the lips, oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, lung, stomach, colorectum, breast, pancreas, and liver
Taking into account lagged effects, 1-L decreases in alcohol consumption per capita were associated with a decline of 3.9% in overall cancer mortality over a 20-year period, and 1-kg decreases in tobacco consumption per capita were associated with a 16% reduction
In this study, alcohol consumption per capita was positively associated with overall cancer mortality among older men and women, and tobacco consumption per capita was positively associated with overall cancer mortality among older men over a 20-year period
Summary
Two systematic reviews of scientific literature on alcohol, tobacco, and cancer diseases published by the World Cancer Research Fund in 20071 and the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 20122 concluded that long-term alcohol and tobacco consumption increases risk of cancer of the lips, oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, lung, stomach, colorectum, breast, pancreas, and liver. Case-control and prospective studies have found that associations of alcohol consumption and tobacco smoking with cancer diseases vary across sex and age groups, which may largely be because of variations in the drinking and smoking habits among different subgroups Comparing those who have ever smoked with those who have never smoked, lung cancer risk was higher among men than women in Europe, while it was the opposite in the United States.[11] The association of cumulative cigarette smoking with lung cancer death was significantly different among different sex and age groups in Japan.[5] Sex differences were found for esophageal and liver cancer, where the alcohol-related risk was higher in women than in men, but not for other types of cancer.[12] We extended the analysis to investigate whether temporal associations of population alcohol and tobacco consumption with cancer mortality differ in sex and age groups
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
