Questions about smoking behaviour have been asked of GHS respondents aged 16 and over in alternate years since 1974. Following the review of the GHS, the smoking questions became part of the continuous survey and are being included every year from 2000 onwards.

This chapter updates information about trends in cigarette smoking presented in previous reports in this series, and comments on variations according to personal characteristics such as sex, age, socio-economic classification and economic activity status, and briefly on the prevalence of cigarette smoking in different parts of Great Britain. Other topics covered in the chapter include cigarette consumption, type of cigarette smoked, and dependency on cigarettes.