Medical Care Expenditures Attributable to Cigarette Smoking

Cigarette smoking is the most important preventable cause of morbidity and prema­ture mortality in the United States; however, approximately 48 million persons aged greater than or equal to 18 years are smokers (1) ), and approximately 24 billion packages of cigarettes are purchased annually (2). Each year, approximately 400,000 deaths in the United States are attributed to cigarette smoking (3) and costs associated with morbidity attributable to smoking are substantial (4). To provide estimates for 1993 of smoking-attributable costs for selected categories of direct medical-care expenditures (i.e., prescription drugs, hospitaliza­tions, physician care, home-health care, and nursing-home care), the University of California and CDC analyzed data from the 1987 National Medical Expenditures Survey (NMES-2) and from the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA). This report summarizes the results of the analysis.