“Smoking kills” is just one of the slogans linked to anti-tobacco awareness groups, and it is absolutely true. When analyzing behavioral risks, that is, the types of risks that can be largely avoided, especially in highly industrialized nations, smoking cigarettes, cigars and other tobacco products is linked to a variety of diseases responsible for 7.7 million deaths worldwide, as shown in the graph with data from the study Global Burden of Disease 2019 from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, no other behavioral risk factor comes close to smoking’s disease burden.
Ranking second globally and in terms of deaths associated with risk factors in the United States in 2019 isuse of alcoholwith an estimated number of 2.4 million global deaths and 137,000 in the United States in 2019. Approximately 57% and 30% of global deaths associated with risk factors and linked tosubstance abuse and digestive diseases, respectively, can be attributed to alcohol use. While one high sodium diet is linked to almost two million deaths on a global scale and therefore ranks third in the world, the United States has a different problem: thedrug abuse.
In 2019, it is estimated that approx 105,000 people have died due to drug-related illnesses, which constitute approximately 4% of the total deaths related to behavioral risks in the country. This is especially clear when compared to the same figure globally, where the death rate barely reaches one percent. The total number of deaths from risk factors in the United States was 1.8 million, while the global number was 35 million.
