Smoking Behavior and Healthcare Expenditure in the United States, 1992-2009: Panel Data Estimates.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Reductions in smoking in Arizona and California have been shown to be associated with reduced per capita healthcare expenditures in these states compared to control populations in the rest of the US. This paper extends that analysis to all states and estimates changes in healthcare expenditure attributable to changes in aggregate measures of smoking behavior in all states.

Methods and findings

State per capita healthcare expenditure is modeled as a function of current smoking prevalence, mean cigarette consumption per smoker, other demographic and economic factors, and cross-sectional time trends using a fixed effects panel data regression on annual time series data for each the 50 states and the District of Columbia for the years 1992 through 2009. We found that

SUBMITTER: Lightwood J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4862673 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature