Age, Period and Cohort Analysis of Smoking Prevalence in Iranian Population over a 25-Year Period

Background: Current and daily smoking prevalence rates have been have investigated in several cross-sectional studies. However, analyses in terms of age-period-cohort (APC) have not been carried out. We assessed daily smoking dynamics over a 25-year period using the APC model. Methods: In our analyses, we used data from 214,652 people aged 15 to 64 years, collected by national health surveys conducted in 1990-1991, 1999, 2005, 2007, 2011 and 2016. The Intrinsic Estimator model was used to analyze the impact of APC on daily smoking prevalence. Results: Males were found to exhibit a higher prevalence of smoking compared to females (26.0% against 2.7%). Prevalence of smoking increased by age, peaking at the age groups of 40-44 in men and 45-49 in women, followed by a decreasing trend. The 1990 period had the highest prevalence in both genders, and the 2016 period had the lowest. The coefficients of birth cohort effects showed different patter19s of fluctuations in the two genders with the maximum and minimum coefficients for men calculated in the 1966-1970 and 1991-95 birth cohorts, and for females the 1931-1935 and 1971-1975 birth cohorts, respectively. Conclusion: We showed the impact of APC on daily tobacco smoking prevalence, and these factors should be considered when dealing with smoking.