Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Wendy Max, PhD, Hai-Yen Sung, PhD, and Lue-Yen Tucker. Institute for Health & Aging, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Suite 340, San Francisco, CA 94118, 415 476-8023, wendy.max@ucsf.edu

This study is developing models of smoking-attributable costs for African Americans, Hispanics, and all other people in California for 2002, including mortality and direct healthcare costs.

In 2002, 39,680 Californians died of smoking-related illness, including 3013 African Americans and 3003 Hispanics. This represented a loss of nearly 500,000 years of life. The years of life lost per death was highest for African Americans (16.3) and Hispanics (14.6), indicating that they died at younger ages. While the leading cause of smoking-attributable deaths for all groups in California was cardiovascular disease, the proportion of these deaths was greater for African Americans (46%) and Hispanics (48%) than for other residents (36%). Lost lives from smoking-related diseases represented a loss of over $6 million in productivity in the state.

Separate econometric models of healthcare costs are being developed for (1) ambulatory care; (2) inpatient care, including emergency room visits; (3) home health care; and (4) prescription drugs. The models predict health expenditures for those who currently smoke (and former smokers) and for never smokers who are the same as smokers in every way other than smoking status. The difference between expenditures for these two groups is the smoking-attributable cost. Preliminary findings indicate that African Americans most likely to have had hospital expenditures were older, nonpoor, widowed, and had public insurance. Hispanics most likely to have had hospital expenditures were older, had some college education, had health insurance, and smoked daily. The similarities and differences in determinants of smoking-related expenditures between groups are being analyzed.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant will be able to

• identify the components of the costs of smoking
• discuss the impact of smoking on the African American and Hispanic communities compared to other communities in California

Keywords: African American, Hispanic

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No