Gender, economics and culture: diversity and the international evolution of smoking prevalence.

Aims: To examine whether the observed diversity between national patterns of smoking prevalence could require modification of the World Health Organization (WHO) linear model for an international 'smoking pandemic' (a worldwide epidemic) to address data from non-western countries.

Method: We conducted secondary research using current measures in three publicly available databases: Globalink, the International Labour Organization and the World Bank (all Internet-accessible). The measures we used are the separate percentage data for men and women on: smoking and employment and national income per capita (US$) and percentage growth per annum.