Smoking

Although some movies make smoking look glamorous and attractive, you don't need to look further than a person suffering from smoking-induced cancer to realise just how much the habit can damage your health.

While the devastating effects of smoking should concern everyone, Indigenous Australians should be even more concerned. Medical studies have shown that Indigenous people are at far greater risk than other Australians of succumbing to tobacco-related afflictions such as cervical, lung and liver cancer.

The mortality rates for illnesses such as cervical cancer are 10 times higher among Aboriginal women than among non-Indigenous women.

The study also found that tobacco use in Aboriginal communities is as high as 54 per cent. Nineteen per cent of non-Indigenous Australians smoke. On a global level, there are up to five million tobacco-related deaths each year, with that figure expected to reach 10 million by 2030.