Social Costs of Smoking in NSW

September 2016
Staff: 

NDARC: Dr Marian Shanahan, Ms Oluwadamisola Sotade, Professor Alison Ritter, Dr Phuong Hoang, Dr Ryan J Courtney and Professor Louisa Degenhardt.

Other investigators: 

Catherine Kellick, Sax Institute; Anita Dessaix, The Cancer Institute NSW; Tim Harrold, Department of Health NSW; Natasha Hayes, Department of Health NSW; Donna Perez, The Cancer Institute NSW; Sandra Rickards, The Cancer Institute NSW; Katarzyna Bochynska, The Cancer Institute NSW; Gersom Santos, The Cancer Institute NSW.

Project description: 

This project will estimate the social and economic costs related to tobacco use in NSW for 2014.  Mortality and morbidity costs attributable to smoking will be estimated as will lost productivity, costs due to fires and the intangible costs due to mortality attributable to smoking. Also included are expenditures on services and programs to prevent or stop smoking and taxation revenues.  Using these data, a model will be developed to explore the impact on social costs as the prevalence of smoking changes.

 This project, commissioned by the SAX Institute, is being conducted for NSW Health and the NSW Cancer Institute. The results will be used as a reference and guiding document to inform advocacy, planning decisions and program design related to smoking in NSW.

The project aims to quantify the social costs of smoking in NSW for one year (2014).