Passive smoking deaths up 50% since 1990; India's exposed population falls to 30.6%

While India's age-standardised passive smoking exposure prevalence declined from 43.2% to 30.6% over three decades, absolute deaths rose 50% because the total exposed population grew from 375M in 1990 to 444M in 2023. Healthtech founders should recognize this paradox: lowering incidence rates in a growing population still means more absolute cases—your screening, detection, and care capacity models must scale faster than prevention alone can achieve.

Source: ET HealthWorld ↗