Home > EU country cancer profile 2023 - Ireland.

Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development. (2023) EU country cancer profile 2023 - Ireland. Paris: OECD Publishing.

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This profile identifies strengths, challenges and specific areas of action on cancer prevention and care in Ireland as part of the European Cancer Inequalities Registry, a flagship initiative of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan. It provides a short synthesis of: the national cancer burden; risk factors for cancer (focusing on behavioural and environmental risk factors); early detection programmes; and cancer care performance (focusing on accessibility, care quality, costs and the impact of COVID-19 on cancer care).

P.3 Risk factors and prevention policies Smoking and alcohol consumption are important drivers of cancer incidence and mortality in Ireland. Progress is being made to reduce the rates of both. Ireland has among the bottom quarter of smoking rates in the EU, but alcohol consumption remains above the EU average.

P.7 Behavioural risk factors are a major driver of cancer incidence
The proportion of cancer cases attributable to modifiable risk factors is estimated to be 30% (NCRI, 2020). Smoking has by far the biggest impact among these risk factors and is associated with about one in every eight cancer cases (NCRI, 2020). For this reason, Ireland has focused strongly on reducing smoking habits over the past two decades and has made significant progress. Overweight and obesity as well as infection (such as human papillomavirus, or HPV) are risk factors that lead to high numbers of cancer cases. Other lifestyle behaviours – such as alcohol consumption – remain prevalent which calls for more effective prevention (Figure 4). In 2020, expenditure on prevention corresponded to 3.3 % of total health expenditure (lower than the EU average of 3.4%).

P.8 Smoking cessation is a top public health priority in Ireland
Smoking is the biggest cause of overall preventable mortality in Ireland and results in 2 900 cancer deaths each year (Department of Health, 2017). Overall, smoking (including passive smoking) is responsible for 13 % of all cancer (NCRI, 2020). For this reason, the first goal of the National Cancer Strategy is making Ireland tobacco-free – defined as a prevalence rate of less than 5% – by 2025. Smoking rates in Ireland are already low relative to many other EU countries. According to the EHIS, around 14% of Irish people were daily smokers of cigarettes in 2019, compared to the EU average of more than 18%. However, smoking prevalence increased by more than 1 percentage point between 2014 and 2019. This uptick was driven largely by increases in smoking prevalence among men aged 15-64 years. The greatest disparity in smoking habits is by income level. Nearly 18% of the population on lower incomes smoked daily, compared to only 7% of those on higher incomes (report figure 5). While cigarette smoking rates are relatively low, other tobacco products may pose more of a challenge. Ireland has the highest rates of vaping among EU countries that report such data, at 5% of the population aged 15 years and over in 2019, which is more than double the EU average of 2.3%.

Alcohol consumption leads to 506 new cancer diagnoses annually according to the National Cancer Registry
Recent analyses by the National Cancer Registry Ireland show that 506 new cancer case were attributable to alcohol consumption in 2016. The population aged 15 years and over consumed on average 10.1 litres of pure alcohol per capita in 2020 (report figure 6). While this number is higher than the EU average of 9.8 litres per capita, it has decreased since 2000, when the rate was more than 14 litres of alcohol per capita. More than 5% of Ireland’s population in 2014 were considered hazardous alcohol drinkers, which was the second highest rate in the EU. The shares of hazardous alcohol drinkers among men (5.6%) and women (5.3%) were even. The largest disparity among subpopulation groups was seen between those living in urban versus rural areas of Ireland. Nearly 8 % of city inhabitants were counted as hazardous drinkers, compared to 5% of those living in towns and suburbs and 4 % of those in rural areas. Further, hazardous drinking was more prevalent among people with higher (6.1%) than lower (4.1%) education levels, and among people on lower (6.5%) than higher (5.9%) incomes. In 2018, cross-government collaboration through the Healthy Ireland initiative facilitated the introduction of the Public Health (Alcohol) Act to restrict access to alcohol by setting price minimums, restricting advertising, adding warning labels and limiting product placement in stores.

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