One in seven Tamworth residents will die of a smoking-related illness, a new study has found, which also suggested the area is stuck in a smoking "time warp."
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Almost one in three, or 30.1 per cent, of Tamworth residents suck down coffin nails on a daily basis, according to a Victoria University think tank.
It found that Tamworth has the second-highest smoking rate in the state behind Mt Druitt in Sydney's west.
That rate puts the city 31 years behind the rest of Australia, with the average rate 14.1 per cent, according to health policy lead Ben Harris, who said Tamworth's rate had not been seen nationally since 1988.
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"Smoking kills, and it looks like around five times more people are going to die in Mount Druitt and Tamworth than in Ku-ring-gai in inner Sydney," Mr Harris said.
"We also know that the best way to stop children picking up the habit is to support the adults around them to quit smoking."
National smoking rates have been on a steady decline since its peak in the 1970s, when almost three quarters of Australian men and one quarter of women smoked; however, some regions, such as Tamworth, are slower to catch on than others.
"Parts of NSW are caught in a time warp, where large parts of the state have smoking rates that are between 18 and 31 years behind the rest of the population," Mr Harris said.
"The breakdown of which communities have the highest smoking rates can assist governments to better target their limited advertising and health services budgets to those communities."
In Australia, smoking is the leading cause of preventable illness and death, with every cigarette containing 70 chemicals known to cause cancer.
The Moree Plains shire has the third-highest rate of smokers in the state, followed by Wellington and Nambucca, while Ku-ring-gai has a rate of just 7.2 per cent, followed by Willoughby, Mosman, Lane Cove and North Sydney.
