The impact of smoking and air pollution exposure on lung cancer, ischemic heart disease, stroke, and copd mortality: The case of OECD countries

This research investigates the influence of tobacco use and air pollution on the mortality rates associated with lung cancer, ischemic heart disease, stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in OECD member states. Employing a retrospective design, the study explores correlations and regression outcomes to assess the association between smoking, environmental pollution, and cause-specific mortality. The analysis incorporates air pollution metrics and smoking prevalence from 2019 OECD data, alongside mortality statistics obtained from the World Health Organization for the same year. Statistical evaluations were carried out using SPSS v25.0 and Microsoft Excel, with significance set at p<0.05. The results revealed a statistically significant and moderately positive correlation between smoking and mortality from lung cancer and stroke (p<0.05). However, air pollution did not exhibit a significant correlation with any of the selected mortality outcomes (p>0.05). According to simple regression analysis, smoking substantially influenced mortality rates for lung cancer and stroke, whereas air pollution showed no notable impact. Combined, smoking and air pollution accounted for 44.9% of lung cancer mortality variation and 25.7% for stroke (p<0.05). The findings underscore the prominent role of smoking in increasing the risk of lung cancer and stroke, while also highlighting the necessity of incorporating environmental determinants like air pollution into public health frameworks.