Although smoking prevalence has decreased, deaths attributable to smoking have gone up by 4.7% globally, latest figures show.

The Global Burden of Disease Study published in The Lancet analysed smoking prevalence and deaths from more than 195 countries between 1990 and 2015.

Worldwide, nearly one billion people smoked daily in 2015, including one in four men and one in 20 women – a reduction from one in three men and one in 12 women, respectively, since 1990, the figures revealed.

Over half of smoking related deaths in 2015 occurred in China, India, Russia, and the US.

“Despite more than half a century of unequivocal evidence of the harmful effects of tobacco on health, today, one in every four men in the world is a daily smoker,” said senior author Dr Emmanuela Gakidou, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, USA.

“Smoking remains the second largest risk factor for early death and disability, and so to further reduce its impact we must intensify tobacco control to further reduce smoking prevalence and attributable burden.”