Trends in Smoking among University Students between 2005 - 2012 in Sakarya , Turkey Tuncay

The five leading global risks for mortality in the world are high blood pressure, tobacco use, high blood glucose, physical inactivity, and overweight-obesity. These are responsible for raising the risk of chronic diseases, such as heart disease and cancers and affect countries across all income groups. Worldwide smoking prevalence is 26% (males 54%, females 10%) and attributable mortality by smoking in the world is estimated to be 8.7% (males 11.5%, females 5.5%). According to the classification in July 2012 on the basis of 2011 gross national income (GNI) per capita by the World Bank, Turkey stands in “upper middle income” group among European countries (The World Bank, 2014). The prevalence of regular tobacco smoking (the main component of tobacco use) in the European Region of the World Health Organization (WHO) among the population aged 15 years and over has reached 27% on average according to the data reported from 37 countries around 2008 (World Health Organization, 2013). The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco