Tobacco’s hidden hit on our working years
Anew global study has lifted the smokescreen on just how much tobacco is costing the global economy.
The study, published this week in Tobacco Control, found tobacco-related costs on a global scale accounted for 2 per cent of total GDP, or $1967 billion in one year. The healthcare costs associated with smoking totalled $578 billion globally.
The study looked at the cost of hospital visits and treatment, as well as the value of productivity lost to death or disability.
It found the number of working years lost because of smoking related illness added up to 26.8 million globally, 18 million of which were due to death.
Otago University Associate Professor Nick Wilson, said New Zealand research on smoking tended to under-cook the true savings of quitting, because it did not look deeply at productivity cost.
‘‘That works in many ways. If a smoker dies of a heart-attack at age 50, then obviously they’re not going to be productive citizens. But if they suffer a tobacco-related disease like a heart-attack or a stroke, they may retire early because of those diseases, or they may just work at a less productive level,’’ said Wilson.
Wilson said research was leading into looking at productivity cost with other illnesses.
The Treasury started to explore the topic by looking into the productivity cost of diseases like stroke, and coronary heart disease. Treasury found four years after stroke, patients earning losses were highest, accumulating to $39,000 after tax.
‘‘Of all the investments in the health sector, one of the best is actually improving tobacco control and reducing smoking,’’ said Wilson.
Wilson’s paper on tobacco-modelling research found New Zealand would save $3.6 billion in healthcare costs if the tobacco tax was increased 10% every year until 2031.
The savings would start immediately, but most would come decades into the future.
Wilson said New Zealand’s goal of being smokefree by 2025 was unlikely without more progress from politicians.
‘‘If they see how beneficial for the economy it is having a healthier workforce - If it’s presented to politicians - then maybe they’ll be more likely to do some of the more bolder measures required to get to the smoke-free 2025 goal.’’
Currently, 605,000 New Zealand adults are smokers. That number would have to shrink to less than 224,000 in order to meet the smoke-free 2025 goal with the current population.