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Canadians appear to be clearing the air when it comes to smoking, with fewer residents of this country lighting up on a daily basis than their counterparts in any other major industrialized nation, new statistics suggest.

The numbers – compiled by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development – also found that we are drinking less on average than other OECD residents and living longer, but we are also pretty much on par when it comes to obesity.

When it comes to smoking, the OECD said about 17 per cent of Canadians partake on a daily basis, down from 33 per cent in 1981.

The most recent figure ranks as the lowest among OECD countries, edging out Sweden and the United States, both of which reported daily smoking rates of 17.5 per cent in 2003.

When it comes to tobacco consumption, however, Canada's showing wasn't quite up to snuff.

The numbers – released in Canada by the Canadian Institute for Health Information – showed that Canada ranked 14th out of 19 countries in terms of consumption.

“Smokers in Canada tend to smoke, on average, slightly more cigarettes per day than in most OECD countries,” Thursday's report said.

When it comes to alcohol consumption, Canada ranked 24th lowest among 30 countries. But, the report – which looked at a broad range of factors affecting the health of Canadians as well as residents of other countries – also said the prevalence of obesity in Canada is “roughly equal” to the OECD average.

“One benefit of building a stronger national health information system is improving our capacity to compare the health of Canadians and our health system with that of other countries,” CIHI president and chief executive officer Glenda Yeates said.

“The OECD data highlight how critical it is to have objective and comparable data at the national level so we can measure our performance against that of other countries facing similar challenges.

In other findings, the OECD said the average life expectancy in Canada stood at 79.7 years in 2002, 1.9 years above the OECD average.

Overall, Canada ranked eighth among OECD countries. Japan had the highest life expectancy at 81.8 years, followed by Iceland, Spain, Switzerland, Australia, Sweden and Italy.

Health-care spending – reported as a share of gross domestic product – was also ahead of the OECD average. In 2003, the percentage of spending was 9.9 per cent, compared with 8.6 per cent on average for all OECD countries.

The public share of health-care spending in Canada was 69.9 per cent in 2003, slightly below the OECD average of 72.1 per cent.

In terms of the number of physicians, Canada ranked behind most OECD nations. In this country, there are 2.1 physicians per 1,000 Canadians, similar to that in countries such as Japan, Britain and New Zealand but below the OECD average of 2.9 doctors for every 1,000 citizens.