Tobacco use takes a tremendous toll on adults, children and the overall
health care system:
•
Every day, more than 4,000 kids try smoking for the
first time
•
45 million adults smoke in the U.S.
•
Annual public and private health care expenditures caused by smoking:
$75 billion
•
Medicaid payments made by federal and state governments for smoking-related
Medicaid payments: $23.5 billion
•
Annual productivity losses caused by smoking each year: more than
$82 billion
Smoking cessation is among the most cost-effective clinical preventive services.
Smoking cessation programs save lives and health care costs related to treating
sick and dying smokers. In fact, cessation programs are more cost-effective
than several preventive services -- such as mammography, colon cancer screening
and PAP tests -- routinely covered by insurers(1) .
Constance Weisner, DrPH; Jennifer Mertens, MA; Sujaya
Parthasarathy, PhD; Charles Moore, MD, MBA; Yun Lu, MPH
October 10, 2001 JAMA / volume:286 (page: 1715)
1Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Best Practices for Comprehensive
Tobacco Control Programs, August 1999, p. 24.
To find out about the effectiveness of
cessation programs and tobacco’s toll on kids, adults
and health care systems, click
here.
