1. Over the past 10 years there has been a steady decline in the proportion of adults who smoke. If this continues, it is likely in due course to be reflected in a decline in the mortality and morbidity rates for obstructive airways diseases and, eventually, in a fall in the mortality rate for lung cancer. Over the past few years, however, mortality rates for chronic nonmalignant respiratory disease (all forms) have changed little and the small fall in mortality from respiratory cancers in men has been offset by a rise in women. Hospital discharge and death rates for chronic bronchitis and emphysema have fallen since 1979 but there has been a small increase in the rates for lung cancer
2. Unpublished data from the General Household Survey of 1975 and the Hospital Inpatient Enquiry of
3. Staffing in thoracic medicine;KM, I.Citron; DR, Lewis; AJ, Nunn;Br MedJ,1980
4. British Thoracic Society. Thoracic medicine in Great Britain,1987
5. Funding respiratory research;Green, M.;Thorax,1985