The Cost-benefit Analysis for Smoking Cessation Programs

Sugawara Tamie, Ohkusa Yasushi

doi:10.4091/iken.15.3_13

This paper examines the cost-benefit analysis of smoking cessation programs, such as health education at health centers, consultation and treatment at medical institutions, availability of gum as an OTC drug and nicotine patch as an OTC drug even though nicotine patch is currently only available by prescription. Prior to this, we update the disease burden of smoking, and we estimate the loss of life to be 77,000 people and its social cost to amount to 8.7 trillion yen. The cost-benefit analysis is performed over a lifetime, from a societal viewpoint, and evaluated by the benefit cost ratio (BCR) approach. BCR is calculated based on the estimated demand curve for each program taking account of the effect of policy interventions like subsidies through health education or health insurance, and externality of smoking cessation. As the estimation results suggest, health education incurs a negative BCR of 0.027 (95%CI [0.027-0.028]). On the other hand, medical services which are not covered by the health insurance enjoy a positive BCR of 1.44 [1.3-1.66]. Moreover, nicotine gum and nicotine patch as an OTC drugs yield positive BCRs of 1.40 [1.29-1.55] and 1.58 [1.49-1.69], respectively. We can therefore, conclude that making nicotine patches available as an OTC drug is the most beneficial measure to take.

The Cost-benefit Analysis for Smoking Cessation Programs

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