By Scott Olson, The IBJ
solson@ibj.com
A study by Indiana University's Bowen Research Center says secondhand smoke cost the state $390.3 million in excess medical expenses, or about $62 per person, in 2007.
The center, part of IU's School of Medicine, conducted the study for the Indiana Department of Health's Smokefree Indiana campaign and the Indiana Tobacco Prevention & Cessation Agency. It announced the results this afternoon at a press conference at the Statehouse.
Broken down, secondhand smoke contributes to $282.5 million in yearly health care expenses, and $107.8 million in loss-of-life costs, the study said. The amount does not include costs for Hoosiers who smoke, which alone is estimated to be more than $2 billion, it said.
Dr. Terrell W. Zollinger, author of the study, said the costs likely are conservative because expenses relating to pain and suffering and outpatient services, for instance, were not included. Further, people who contracted a condition related to secondhand smoke but died from an unrelated event such as an automobile accident were not included, either.
Zollinger conceded that the study did not account for the fact that almost all people encounter end-of-life health care costs, whether or not the cause of death is related to smoking or second-hand smoke.
In fact, some studies have found that non-smokers, on average, actually experience higher lifetime health care costs because they live longer than smokers.
While health care costs are absorbed with any illness or disease, the goal is to incur the expenses late in life, Zollinger said.
"It's a quality-of-life issue," he said. "People will die of something eventually, but it will be when they're 80 years old and not when they're 30."
Indiana has one of the highest smoking rates in the nation. Slightly more than 24 percent of adult Hoosiers smoked in 2006, higher than the national average of 19.8 percent, according to the most recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The costs of secondhand smoke should be considered when developing policy recommendations to combat affects of tobacco smoking on a population, the report concluded.
Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, has introduced legislation this session that would ban smoking in public places statewide. Nearly 30 cities in Indiana have some form of a smoking ban.
"The workplace, that's really the target," Zollinger said. "We want our workplaces to be as safe as possible.