[Smoking--II. Duration of smoking and factors affecting smoking as a social phenomenon].

According to the poll of 5,555 individuals (91% of the expected number) over 40 years of age, selected from electoral registers in all three districts of the community of Mali Idjos in 1987, the average duration of smoking among active smokers increases with age, divergently with regard to sex. The age of smokers at the time they started smoking increases with age groups, from 22.2 to 33.2 in males and from 28.1 to 49 in females. The onset of smoking in the oldest male group in this rural area occurred in the first years after the war (first land confiscation) while in the group from 70 to 74 years of age it occurred in the years of compulsory crop-purchase system. Agglomeration in the onset of smoking in two male age groups (60-64, 65-69) occurred at the time of the second land confiscation. The onset of smoking among females from all age groups, from 45 years on occurred in the first decade of the sexual revolution (1961-1971). The prevalence of smoking in the studied population was different in previous decades as well. It changes according to social factors: from political and economic changes among males to the changes in women's social status among females.