So, why do we continue putting our health at risk, if we know how to be healthy?įor people who smoke it’s not as simple as avoiding cigarettes because they’re unhealthy and costly. This question is fundamental to understanding inequalities in cancer, and the answer is very complex.Īround 4 in 10 cancer cases in the UK are preventable, through things like not smoking and keeping a healthy weight. But if most people know that smoking is bad for them, why is this the case? We know that smoking is more common in some population groups than others. And it’s not ‘news’ anymore – 94% of UK adults recognise smoking as a risk factor for cancer when prompted.* Decades of research show that smoking increases the risk of at least 15 different types of cancer. The link between tobacco and cancer is very well established. Smoking causes cancer, but what causes smoking? In this piece, we investigate what’s behind differences in smoking with Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, Associate Professor in evidence-based medicine at the University of Oxford. Our first post looked at what health inequalities are, and how we can reduce them. This is the second instalment of our series on health inequalities, where we explore the unfair and avoidable differences in cancer incidence and outcomes across society. This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Health inequalities
