The influence of societal individualism on a century of tobacco use: modelling the prevalence of smoking

TL;DR

This paper introduces a mathematical model linking societal individualism to smoking prevalence dynamics, supported by a century-long data set, highlighting cultural impacts on health behavior spread and cessation.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel mathematical model that quantifies how societal individualism influences smoking adoption and cessation over time.

Findings

Individualistic societies show faster smoking adoption and cessation.

The model accurately fits century-long data from 25 countries.

Cultural differences significantly affect social spreading processes.

Abstract

Smoking of tobacco is predicted to cause approximately six million deaths worldwide in 2014. Responding effectively to this epidemic requires a thorough understanding of how smoking behaviour is transmitted and modified. Here, we present a new mathematical model of the social dynamics that cause cigarette smoking to spread in a population. Our model predicts that more individualistic societies will show faster adoption and cessation of smoking. Evidence from a new century-long composite data set on smoking prevalence in 25 countries supports the model, with direct implications for public health interventions around the world. Our results suggest that differences in culture between societies can measurably affect the temporal dynamics of a social spreading process, and that these effects can be understood via a quantitative mathematical model matched to observations.