Who Bears the Cost of Tobacco Use?
Various groups in the community in addition to the smokers themselves bear the costs of smoking. These other groups are non-smokers, business and government. Business interests bear a very significant proportion of smoking costs through absenteeism and lower workplace productivity. Developing countries can expect to face much higher levels of smoking-related public expenditures in the future. Estimating the Social Costs of Smoking There are two broad approaches to estimating the social costs of smoking – the human capital and demographic methods. The two approaches are complementary rather than competitive since they present the cost information in different ways. Both rely upon knowledge about the causal links between tobacco consumption, on the one hand, and mortality and morbidity, on the other. If these physical links can be quantified it is usually possible to estimate the relevant smoking costs. A considerable amount of such epidemiological information exists, although it very la
