You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Original research
Economic cost of tobacco smoking and secondhand smoke exposure at home in Thailand
  1. Touchanun Komonpaisarn
  1. Centre for Health Economics, Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
  1. Correspondence to Dr Touchanun Komonpaisarn, Centre for Health Economics, Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand; touchanun.k{at}chula.ac.th

Introduction

Smoking is an important public health concern. This study is the first that attempts to estimate the economic cost of smoking and secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure at home in Thailand.

Method

A prevalence-based cost of illness approach following the guideline by WHO is employed.

Result

In 2017, the direct morbidity cost attributable to smoking and SHS exposure at home in Thailand was estimated to be at least US$265.97 million and US$23.66 million, respectively. Indirect morbidity costs from workday loss totalling US$25.04 million can be linked to smoking, while US$1.72 million was the result of SHS exposure at home. Smoking-attributable premature deaths resulted in an opportunity loss to the country equivalent to US$2.48 billion, while the figure was US$181.41 million for SHS exposure at home. Total years of life lost due to smoking and SHS-attributable premature deaths are estimated to have been at least 390 955 years for males and 82 536 years for females. The total economic cost from both types of tobacco exposure amounted to US$2.98 billion, equivalent to 17.41% of Thailand’s current health expenditure or 0.65% of its gross domestic product in 2017.

Conclusion

Smoking imposed a substantial economic burden on Thailand in 2017. Seven per cent of this cost was imposed on non-smokers sharing a residence with smokers. Females bore 80% of this SHS-related cost. The findings call for prompt responses from public health agencies in Thailand to launch effective tobacco control policies.

  • secondhand smoke
  • smoking caused disease
  • economics

Data availability statement

All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as online supplemental information.

https://doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2020-056147

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Data availability statement

    All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as online supplemental information.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Correction notice This article has been corrected since it first published. The provenance and peer review statement has been included.

    • Contributors TK is the sole author of the work.

    • Funding This study obtained funding from the Tobacco Control Research and Knowledge Management Centre (TRC), Faculty of Medicine, Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand (grant no. R-62-05-018).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.