Trends in Prevalence of Cigarette Smoking in Brazil: 2006–2019

Objectives. To analyze trends in cigarette smoking among Brazilian adults from 2006 to 2019.Methods. We performed a time-series analysis based on data from the Surveillance of Risk and Protective Factors for Chronic Diseases Telephone Survey (n = 730 309). We calculated the annual prevalence of current cigarette smokers, heavy smokers, and passive smokers in the workplace and investigated linear trends using Prais-Winsten regression, for the entire period and for the past 5 years. We performed the analyses for the total population and according to the sociodemographic characteristics.Results. The prevalence of cigarette smoking, heavy smoking, and passive smoking in the workplace declined, respectively, an average of 3.99% per year, 5.65% per year, and 6.55% per year from 2006 to 2019. We observed this reduction regardless of gender, age, educational level, and geographic region. The magnitude of reduction in the prevalence of current cigarette smoking decreased in the past 5 years, while the magnitude of the change in heavy smoking increased.Conclusions. The prevalence of cigarette smoking decreased in the time period studied. The smaller magnitude of reduction for current cigarette smoking in the most recent years might indicate a fatigue with the current policy scenario.