Tobacco use is a critical health issue that has a profound impact on individuals, their family members and friends, and the workplace. Consider the following statistics:

General statistics

• Smokers will die an average of 13-14.5 years sooner than non-smokers.¹
• Tobacco use claims 440,000 lives each year and is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States²: It is responsible for 1 in every 5 American deaths.³
• Direct medical costs associated with smoking in the United States are about $98 billion a year.⁴
• Tobacco kills more Americans each year than alcohol, cocaine, crack, heroin, homicide, suicide, car accidents, fire and AIDS combined.⁵
• More than 50 diseases have been linked to smoking (including cancers, heart disease and lung disease).⁶
• Smokers are twice as likely to die from heart attacks as are nonsmokers.⁷
• Secondhand smoke causes almost 50,000 deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year, including approximately 3,400 from lung cancer and 22,700 to 69,600 from heart disease. ⁸
• More women die from lung cancer than from breast cancer.⁹

Business impact

• The total excess costs to employers per smoker per year are an average of $9,349, broken down as follows¹⁰:
• smoking breaks: $5,625
• mortality-related lost productivity: $1,760
• excess medical expenditures: $1,623
• missed work days due to sickness: $341
• Although there is evidence that smoking cessation programs can reduce costs and improve health, only 24 percent of employers cover tobacco-use treatment.¹¹

Opportunities

• About 70 percent of current smokers report that they want to quit.¹²
• People who stop smoking before age 35 avoid 90 percent of the health risks attributable to tobacco. Even those who quit at age 65 can add years to their life.¹³
• A comprehensive tobacco cessation benefit costs less than $5 per employee per year.¹⁴
• There are few preventive health interventions that are more cost-effective than tobacco cessation; benefits begin to exceed costs within 2 years after implementing a program.¹⁵

These facts clearly illustrate the enormous costs, both human and financial, related to tobacco use. ValueOptions is committed to providing employers with the resources and tools needed to implement effective tobacco cessation benefits for their employees.

¹National Business Group on Health
²Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
³Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
⁴Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
⁵American Cancer Society
⁶U.S. Surgeon General
⁷American Cancer Society
⁸American Lung Association
⁹American Cancer Society
¹⁰Smoke Free Society
¹¹National Business Group on Health
¹²American Lung Association
¹³American Journal of Public Health , 92(6): 990-996.
¹⁴Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
¹⁵”Making the Business Case for Smoking Cessation,” presented by Jeffrey L. Fellows, PhD at The Economic Advantages of Addressing Tobacco Use: A Forum for Executives in Business, Labor and Healthcare, May 20, 2004.