Estimating Smoking Attributable Health Care Costs using the Canadian Community Health Survey (2012)

Abstract

Tobacco consumption is the leading preventable cause of death in Canada and most countries in the world. In addition to mortality and the cost of premature deaths, studies show that smoking imposes an economic burden on the health care system. Using an econometrics approach, this study examines the hypothesis that the health care utilization associated with smoking is economically meaningful and concludes that 12.5 percent of physician visits and 15.5 percent of hospital stays in Canada in 2012 are attributable to smoking, which translates into more than $14 billion dollars of health care expenditures. Thus, even though smoking rates have dropped in the recent years (from about 50 percent in 1965 to approximately 20 percent in 2012), the costs of smoking on the health care system are still high.