A review of economic evaluations of tobacco control programs

Objective: To review the literature, summarize major findings, and identify gaps and make recommendations for future research on economic evaluations of tobacco control programs

Methods: A systematic review of 42 peer-reviewed publications on cost-effectiveness of tobacco cessation interventions and programs. Searches were conducted on EconLit, PubMed, ScienceDirect, and JSTOR. All sources cited in the Guide to Community Preventive Services were obtained. Interventions reviewed include: tax and price increases, media campaigns, clean indoor laws, workplace smoking interventions, quitlines, youth access enforcement, school-based programs, and community-based programs.

Results: Despite wide variations in interventions studied, methods, and data, almost every study we reviewed showed that tobacco control interventions are cost effective. It is apparent from this review that cessation interventions including nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) are the most widely studied and much less work has been done on cost effectiveness of the other interventions.

Conclusions: Tobacco control interventions of all kinds are some of the most cost-effective public health interventions. Public health professionals can use these informative cost-effectiveness results to argue for sustaining tobacco control programs. Although some data exist, more work is needed to rigorously evaluate the cost effectiveness of antitobacco media campaigns, clean indoor air laws, quitlines, and community interventions.

Learning Objectives: To describe and summarize major findings in the literature on the cost effectiveness of tobacco control programs, and to identify gaps in the literature for future research.