SEATTLE – On a global scale, the percentage of the population that smokes daily has dropped, but the number of cigarette smokers worldwide has actually increased, Science Codex reports, citing new research from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.

Researchers attribute the increase of total smokers to population growth, detailing the results in their study, “Smoking Prevalence and Cigarette Consumption in 187 countries, 1980-2012,” which was published earlier this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Between 1980 and 2012, age-standardized smoking prevalence dropped by 42% for women and 25% for men, with Canada, Iceland, Mexico and Norway having reduced smoking by more than half in both men and women.

However, population growth in the past three decades contributed to a 41% increase in the number of male daily smokers and a 7% increase for females. More than 50% of men smoke every day in several countries, including Russia, Indonesia, Armenia, and Timor Leste. Smoking prevalence for women was above 25% in Austria, Chile, and France and higher than 30% in Greece, among the highest percentages in the world.

IHME gathered in-country surveys, government statistics, and World Health Organization data in arriving at its conclusions. 

The number of cigarettes smoked around the world has grown to more than 6 trillion annually. In 75 countries, smokers consumed an average of more than 20 cigarettes per day in 2012.

“Tobacco control is particularly urgent in countries where the number of smokers is increasing,” said Alan Lopez, Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne. “Since we know that half of all smokers will eventually be killed by tobacco, greater numbers of smokers will mean a massive increase in premature deaths in our lifetime.”