SYDNEY, July 17 (Xinhua) -- Smoking may be costing Australia's economy 388 billion Australian dollars (288 billion U.S. dollars) over the course of the current population's working lives, according to latest research.

Researchers from Monash University found out the cost of tobacco use by analyzing the financial losses based on gross domestic product generated per worker in 2016, including productivity and years of life lost, The BMJ medical journal said in a statement highlighting the study on Tuesday.

The study found about 2.5 million Australians aged between 20 to 69 years smoke currently, pointing to more than 3.1 million years of life lost to smoking if the population group was tracked.

Based on the researchers' productivity-adjusted life years of a worker, tobacco use would cost 157,000 Australian dollars (116,280 U.S. dollars) of GDP per person, they said.

The study highlights the potential health and productivity gains that may be achieved from further tobacco control measures in Australia, said the researchers.

Smoking rates in Australia have fallen by nearly 10 percent in the past decade, with just over one in seven adults smoking in 2014-15 compared with nearly one in four in 1995, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

But tobacco use remains one of the largest preventable causes of death and disease in the country, with one tobacco-related death about every 28 minutes, adding up to more than 50 deaths a day, according to health authorities.