Health

SDG 3: Good health and well-being

Published

10 months ago

August 8, 2025

The sustainable development goal ‘Good health and well-being’ (SDG 3) aims to ensure health and promote well-being for people of all ages by improving reproductive, maternal and child health, ending epidemics of major communicable diseases, and reducing non-communicable and mental diseases. It also calls for reducing behavioural and environmental health risk factors.

One of the Eurostat indicators to measure progress in SDG 3 is the smoking prevalence in population aged 15 years and older. In 2023, 24% of the EU population aged 15 and older smoked, indicating a 2 percentage points decrease compared with 2017 (26%). Among men, the share was 28%, while 21% of women smoked.

Sweden reported the lowest share of smokers (8%) among the population aged 15 and older, followed by the Netherlands (11%) and Denmark (14%). These 3 countries also recorded the lowest smoking rates for both men and women: Sweden (9% of men and 8% of women), the Netherlands (13% and 10%) and Denmark (16% and 12%).

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Source dataset: sdg_03_30

In contrast, Bulgaria had the highest overall share of smokers (37%), followed by Greece (36%) and Croatia (35%).

Nearly half of the male population smoked in Bulgaria (49%), Latvia (48%) and Lithuania (43%). Among women, the highest smoking rates were recorded in Greece (32%), Croatia (30%) and Romania (29%).