An online map compares the proportion of smokers to the level of economic and social deprivation among more than 8,000 electoral wards.

The districts with the highest percentage of smokers are Bransholme East, in Hull, and Windmill Hill, in Halton, Cheshire, where an estimated 54 per cent of the population smoke — more than double the national average of 25 per cent. The wards with the lowest number of smokers include Ponteland South, Northumberland, and Little Aston, in Birmingham, where only 9 per cent of residents smoke.

The map, published online by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), the anti-smoking pressure group, is based on estimates of smoking rates and a government index measuring deprivation, and indicates a strong correlation between smoking and poverty.

Fifty-two per cent of residents in what is judged to be the most deprived ward in England — Princess, in Knowsley, Merseyside, — smoke, while the figure in the least deprived ward, Keyworth North in Rushcliffe, South Nottingham, is only 12 per cent.

Among those in the most deprived groups across the country, including lone parents in receipt of state benefits, three out of four families are estimated to contain at least one smoker and to spend a seventh of their disposable income on cigarettes, according to ASH.

As many as one in five deaths in people over 35 is estimated to be the result of smoking. More than 1,600 people in England die each week because of the habit, with the greatest number of related deaths occurring in the most deprived areas, according to the Health Development Agency. The maps use a study conducted for the agency by a team at the University of Portsmouth.

The maps, which have been part-funded by Cancer Research UK and produced by the cartographers Lovell Johns, also use data from the Index of Multiple Deprivation produced in 2004 by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. This calculates the level of deprivation in each area by measuring factors including income, employment, health problems, education and crime rates.

The smoke-free provisions of the Health Act 2006, which will ban smoking in virtually every enclosed public place in England by next summer, are expected to have an effect in reducing the gap in smoking rates between social classes.

ASH has called on all councils to work with primary care trusts to put cutting smoking rates at the top of the local policy agenda.

• The maps are available at www.ash.org.uk/html/mappingproject/mappingproject.html.

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