The prevalence and the socio – economic costs of smoking among the working age population in Latvia

A Kokarevica

doi:10.1051/shsconf/20163000025

Abstract

Smoking is a health problem, the costs of which include sickness, pain, grief and misery. But tobacco use also imposes a significant economic burden on society. One efficient way to assess the adverse health effects of smoking on a society is to translate smoking-caused illnesses, premature mortality, and productivity losses into economic terms, a universal marker for measuring the adverse effects of smoking. Due to the high proportion of smokers, Latvia faces high male mortality from smoking-related diseases; life expectancy for men in the age group 35–64 years is 2.44 years less than for non-smokers in the same age group, losing 37% of total lost years of life and therefore the government loses approximately 45 88346 Euro per year from YPLL from smoking related diseases.

Highlights

Since the late 1950s when Doll and Hill (1956) as one of the first identified a possible relationship between smoking and lung cancer, public health and medical researchers have investigated the effects of smoking and health for half a century [1]
To calculate the economic costs of years of potential life lost (YPLL) we used the potential loss of income from the citizens of working age who have died from diseases that could potentially be closely related to the use of tobacco products, according to surveys mostly – cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and cancers [10]
The highest prevalence of smokers is in the age group which is the most economically active – 25–54 years, which pose a greater risk to the national economy losing the working-age population [13]

Summary

Introduction

Since the late 1950s when Doll and Hill (1956) as one of the first identified a possible relationship between smoking and lung cancer, public health and medical researchers have investigated the effects of smoking and health for half a century [1]. The U.S Surgeon General Report has determined that smoking causes lung and laryngeal cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), coronary heart disease, stroke, and premature death, as well as other major diseases and health conditions [1]. Even 50 years later research continues to newly identify diseases caused by smoking including such common diseases as diabetes mellitus, rheumatoid arthritis, and colorectal cancer [3]. Tobacco use causes more than five million deaths per year among adults worldwide [4]. Tobacco’s cost to governments, to employers and to the environment includes social, welfare and health care spending, loss of foreign exchange in importing cigarettes; loss of land that could grow

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Conclusion