Assessing the damage from cigarette smoking in New York State

Although there is clear evidence that smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States today, almost one third of American adults continue to smoke. To promote public awareness of smoking's adverse effects, we applied a previously established methodology to estimate the impact of cigarette smoking in New York State. Using New York State-specific mortality data, cigarette smoking prevalence rates, and total health care costs, we found that cigarette smoking caused almost 27,000 deaths in 1985, resulting in 335,000 years of potential life lost (mean, 12 years per person). The estimated annual cost of smoking totaled +4.7 billion, including direct (health care) and indirect (lost income and productivity) costs from smoking-attributable deaths and illness. The New York State Department of Health publicized these findings to gain support for a statewide regulation for smoking control in public places. This methodology can easily be applied elsewhere to assess the adverse impact of smoking and to support smoking control activities.