Doctors, teachers and church ministers have been busy stubbing out their cigarettes, but prison guards, singers and social workers are struggling to kick the habit.
A new 25-year study of smoking across occupations has delivered some great news.
Fewer than one in 10 medical specialists, school teachers and church leaders - some of our biggest health role models - now smoke, far below the 22 percent national average for all employed New Zealanders.
Doctors have the lowest rate, with fewer than four percent addicted.
But rates remain high across many other occupations, particularly kohanga reo teachers, of whom 45 percent smoke.
Rates were also high for prison guards (28 percent), nurse aides (27 percent), the armed forces (25 percent), social workers (23 percent), hospital orderlies and ambulance officers (24 percent), professional sportspeople (21 percent), teacher aides (21 percent), and actors, dancers and singers (20 percent).
The newly-published Otago University research compared smoking rates in 1981 with 2006, with lead researcher Professor Richard Edwards saying rates had declined across almost every career group in that time.
Maori, who have always had the highest rates, showed some of the biggest declines across all job groups in 25 years, however their rates still sit well above non-Maori.
Prof Edwards said socio-economic factors seem to play a major role.
"We've got higher rates among nurse aides compared with nurses and teacher aides compared with teachers so clearly your economic status plays a part," Prof Edwards told NZ Newswire.
He said the "alarming" smoking rate among kohanga reo teachers was of particular concern, and called for more targeted occupation-based quit support for those who influence children or young people.
The study has been published in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research.
NZN