This project will estimate the social and economic costs related to tobacco use in NSW for 2014. Mortality and morbidity costs attributable to smoking will be estimated as will lost productivity, costs due to fires and the intangible costs due to mortality attributable to smoking. Also included are expenditures on services and programs to prevent or stop smoking and taxation revenues. Using these data, a model will be developed to explore the impact on social costs as the prevalence of smoking changes.
Catherine Kellick
Sax Institute
Anita Dessaix
The Cancer Institute NSW
Tim Harrold
Department of Health NSW
Natasha Hayes
Department of Health NSW
Donna Perez
The Cancer Institute NSW
Sandra Rickards
The Cancer Institute NSW
Katarzyna Bochynska
The Cancer Institute NSW
Gersom Santos
The Cancer Institute NSW
This project commissioned by the SAX Institute, is being conducted for NSW Health and the NSW Cancer Institute. The results will be used as a reference and guiding document to inform advocacy, planning decisions and program design related to smoking in NSW.
The project aims to quantify the social costs of smoking in NSW for one year (2014).
The initial part of this project will follow a cost of illness approach, and will result in a static estimate for one year. It will include both direct and intangible effects (morbidity, mortality, productivity, fires) and associated costs. Additionally, the NSW portion of GST collected, and the excise taxes from imported tobacco will be estimated, as will the taxes lost from black market sales.
The data generated in the first part of the study will be then used to construct a model to estimate the impact of changes in smoking prevalence rates.
Study activities include:
- Identify all potential impacts due to tobacco;
- Obtain data from a range of public sources and NSW Health;
- Obtain relevant attributable fractions from the literature and then apply to population data (by age and gender);
- Estimate the relevant costs
- Develop model based on the above steps plus information on how costs will vary over the life span of individuals as smoking rates vary.
Final Report delivered to funder.
This study will provide up to date data for NSW policy makers and provide NSW Health and the NSW Cancer Institute with the model and methods for future research.