Precariousness, proximity to Spain … Why do people smoke more in Occitania than elsewhere?

In Occitania, we tend to burn one more often than elsewhere. According to a study by Public Health France, published in May, on average, nationally, 25.5% of adults aged 18 to 75 reported smoking tobacco every day. In Occitania, this indicator climbs to 30.3%. It is also the region where the prevalence of daily smoking is the highest in the country, in third position behind Hauts-de-France and Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur.

As registrations open for the Tobacco Free Month, which in 2020 supported nearly 90,000 smokers in the region who decided to quit smoking, 20 Minutes wondered why more Occitans smoke than others.

The precariousness involved

There are, according to Anne Stoebner, a tobacco specialist at the Montpellier Cancer Institute, two “obvious leads”. First, the high level of household insecurity in the region. According to Anne Stoebner, people with low incomes and financial difficulties are “most at risk of smoking”.

And in this area, Occitania is breaking sad records. If it is in Seine-Saint-Denis that the number of beneficiaries of the RSA (Revenu de solidarité active) is the highest in mainland France, it is the departments of Occitanie which completed the top 5 in 2019, according to the latest figures. available from the Observatory of the territories: the Pyrénées-Orientales, Aude, Gard and Ariège. Another example of the precariousness of the territory, in the second quarter of 2021, Occitania was the region suffering from the highest unemployment rate in metropolitan France (9.4%, according to INSEE).

Proximity to Spain

But if we smoke more than elsewhere in Occitania, it is also “the proximity with the Spanish border and with Andorra,” explains Anne Stoebner. We find that 27% of people who say they made their last purchases of cigarettes in Spain or Andorra ”, where tobacco is sold cheaper. “This practice will limit the impact of the national tobacco control plan”, which is based, in particular, on the increase in the price of tobacco, continues the tobacco specialist. “The increase in the price of the pack works very very well in the center of France, but much less in our region which has interesting borders for the purchase of cigarettes. We even demonstrated, in Epidaurus, that the rate of smokers, among young people, depended on the proximity to the Spanish border. The more young people were away from it, the less cigarettes they smoked, the less risk they were of being a smoker. “

The weather factor

Finally, according to Anne Stoebner, the good weather in Occitania also pushes the inhabitants of the region to grill more often than others. “The climate, mild, allows smoking relatively easily”, explains the tobacco doctor. Obviously, when we quail, we do not want to go smoke a cigarette on the balcony.