Abstract

This article reviews lung cancer mortality and smoking prevalence in Canada. For men, age-adjusted lung cancer death rates are highest in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, areas that had Canada's highest smoking prevalence twenty years ago. Rates are still rising in these provinces, though much less steeply than in the past. In Ontario and the Western provinces, lung cancer death rates for men have reached a plateau in recent years and rates in British Columbia even show signs of falling. Sizable declines in smoking rates among men have been reported in all provinces over the last twenty years, and lung cancer death rates for men can thus be expected to begin declining in this decade. For women, lung cancer death rates began to rise steeply in the 1960s, although remaining well below the rates for men. Rates for women nearly doubled in both the 1970s and 1980s. Smoking rates for women increased up to the early 1970s and declined only slightly since then. Lung cancer death rates for women can thus be expected to continue to rise until the end of the century.