TY - JOUR T1 - Health, economic and social burden of tobacco in Latin America and the expected gains of fully implementing taxes, plain packaging, advertising bans and smoke-free environments control measures: a modelling study JF - Tobacco Control JO - Tob Control DO - 10.1136/tc-2022-057618 SP - tc-2022-057618 AU - Andrés Pichon-Riviere AU - Ariel Bardach AU - Federico Rodríguez Cairoli AU - Agustín Casarini AU - Natalia Espinola AU - Lucas Perelli AU - Luz Myriam Reynales-Shigematsu AU - Blanca Llorente AU - Marcia Pinto AU - Belén Saenz De Miera Juárez AU - Tatiana Villacres AU - Esperanza Peña Torres AU - Nydia Amador AU - César Loza AU - Marianela Castillo-Riquelme AU - Javier Roberti AU - Federico Augustovski AU - Andrea Alcaraz AU - Alfredo Palacios Y1 - 2023/05/03 UR - http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2023/05/24/tc-2022-057618.abstract N2 - 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.Data are available upon reasonable request. ER -