Article Text
Abstract
Objective To investigate the tobacco-attributable burden on disease, medical costs, productivity losses and informal caregiving; and to estimate the health and economic gains that can be achieved if the main tobacco control measures (raising taxes on tobacco, plain packaging, advertising bans and smoke-free environments) are fully implemented in eight countries that encompass 80% of the Latin American population.
Design Markov probabilistic microsimulation economic model of the natural history, costs and quality of life associated with the main tobacco-related diseases. Model inputs and data on labour productivity, informal caregivers’ burden and interventions’ effectiveness were obtained through literature review, surveys, civil registrations, vital statistics and hospital databases. Epidemiological and economic data from January to October 2020 were used to populate the model.
Findings In these eight countries, smoking is responsible each year for 351 000 deaths, 2.25 million disease events, 12.2 million healthy years of life lost, US$22.8 billion in direct medical costs, US$16.2 billion in lost productivity and US$10.8 billion in caregiver costs. These economic losses represent 1.4% of countries’ aggregated gross domestic products. The full implementation and enforcement of the four strategies: taxes, plain packaging, advertising bans and smoke-free environments would avert 271 000, 78 000, 71 000 and 39 000 deaths, respectively, in the next 10 years, and result in US$63.8, US$12.3, US$11.4 and US$5.7 billions in economic gains, respectively, on top of the benefits being achieved today by the current level of implementation of these measures.
Conclusions Smoking represents a substantial burden in Latin America. The full implementation of tobacco control measures could successfully avert deaths and disability, reduce healthcare spending and caregiver and productivity losses, likely resulting in large net economic benefits.
- Public policy
- Low/Middle income country
- Advertising and Promotion
- Taxation
- Packaging and Labelling
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request.
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request.
Footnotes
Twitter @APichonRiviere, @Cesar Loza@CsarLoza12, @AlfrePalacios13
Contributors Conceptualisation—AP-R, AB, FA, AA. Data curation, AP-R, AB, FC, AP, LMR-S, BL, MP, BSDMJ, TV, EPT, NA, CL, MC-R. Formal analysis—AP-R, AB, AA, FC, AC, LP, FA, AP, LMR-S, BL, MP, BSDMJ, TV, EPT, NA, CL, MC-R. Funding acquisition—AP-R, AB, AA. Investigation—AP-R, AB, AC, LP, FA, AA, AP, LMR-S. Methodology—AP-R, AB, AC, AP. Project administration—AP-R, AB, AA. Software—AP-R, AC. Supervision—AP-R, AB, AP, JR, AA. Validation—AP, AA, FA, LMR-S, MP, BSDMJ, TV, EPT, NA, CL, MC-R. Visualisation—AP-R, JR. Writing—AP-R, AA, AB, FC, AP. Original draft and writing—AP-R, AA, AB, AP. Review and editing of manuscript—all authors. AP-R is the guarantor for overall content.
Funding International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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