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Abstract
Background The value that might be added to local economies each year through the money that people who smoke tobacco would save if everyone quit smoking is called the ‘smoke-free dividend’. This study aimed to estimate the value of the smoke-free dividend across local areas in England, and how it relates to the average income in those areas.
Methods The study was a cross-sectional descriptive analysis of tobacco expenditure from the Smoking Toolkit Study (STS) matched to income and smoking prevalence data for English local authorities. The STS sample was from 2014 to 2020 and comprised 18 721 adults who smoke cigarettes. Self-reported expenditure estimates from the STS were adjusted for under-reporting. This adjustment aimed to align the total expenditure estimate with figures derived from government tax receipts and national estimates of illicit tobacco use. The smoke-free dividend is calculated as 93% of spending on legal tobacco, which is the percentage estimated to leave the local economy, plus 100% of spending on illicit tobacco.
Results The total dividend in England is estimated to be £10.9 billion each year, which equates to £1776 per person who smokes or £246 per adult regardless of smoking status. The estimated dividend is greater in areas with lower average income, with a correlation coefficient of −0.521 (95% CI −0.629, –0.392) between the average income of local areas and the dividend per adult.
Conclusions This study has estimated that local economies could gain a substantial dividend if everybody stopped smoking, which is larger in lower income areas, meaning that geographical economic inequalities could be reduced.
- Economics
- Illegal tobacco products
- Cessation
- Disparities
- End game
Data availability statement
Data are available in a public, open access repository. The code which produces the analysis is available on GitHub at https://github.com/STAPM/smoke-free-dividend and the Open Science Framework with doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/VZMP7. The analysis uses functions and data available in the R package ‘smkfreediv’ which is also available on GitHub at https://github.com/STAPM/smkfreediv.
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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Data availability statement
Data are available in a public, open access repository. The code which produces the analysis is available on GitHub at https://github.com/STAPM/smoke-free-dividend and the Open Science Framework with doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/VZMP7. The analysis uses functions and data available in the R package ‘smkfreediv’ which is also available on GitHub at https://github.com/STAPM/smkfreediv.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary Data
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Footnotes
Twitter @drduncgillespie
Contributors Conceptualisation: TEL, MJD, MC, MH. Data curation: DM, JB. Formal analysis: DM. Funding acquisition: TEL, JB, MJD. Methodology: DM, DG, MJD, MC, MH, TEL. Project administration: DG. Supervision: DG, TL. Validation: DM, DG, TL. Visualisation: DM. Writing—original draft: DM, DG, TL. Writing—review and editing: DM, DG, MD, JB, TL. Guarantor: DM.
Funding This work was supported by the UK Prevention Research Partnership (MR/S037519/1), which is funded by the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council, Health and Social Care Research and Development Division (Welsh Government), Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health Research, Natural Environment Research Council, Public Health Agency (Northern Ireland), The Health Foundation and Wellcome. The Smoking Toolkit Study England data collection is supported by Cancer Research UK (PRCRPG-Nov21\100002).
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Competing interests JB has received unrestricted funding to study smoking cessation from Pfizer and J&J, who manufacture medically licensed smoking cessation treatments.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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