Are Tobacco Control Interventions Cost-effective?
There are effective interventions for tobacco control, but are they also cost-effective? In health care the average cost per year of life saved is approximately $25,000. That is, for every $25,000 spent in health care, we increase someone’s life expectancy by one year. How do tobacco control interventions compare with this average expenditure of $25,000 per year of life saved? An extensive review by the World Health Organization examined the following five highly effective tobacco control measures: • Tax increases • Clean indoor air enforcement • Comprehensive advertising ban • Information dissemination • Clinical intervention using nicotine replacement therapy When the five interventions were combined as a single strategy, the cost per year of life saved was only $274, or about 1% of the average cost of health care interventions. The eminently plausible conclusion is that it would be prudent as a society to aggressively pursue smoking cessation by all these means in order to achieve s
