Economic Benefits of Achieving Realistic Smoking Cessation Targets in Australia

The deleterious impact of tobacco smoking on health is well understood,1 and the health benefits of reducing the proportion of a country’s citizens who smoke tobacco have been quanti-fied numerous times.2,3 For example, in the most recent Australian Burden of Disease Study, conducted in 2003, tobacco use was responsible for the greatest disease burden (7.8%) in the country among the 14 risk factors reviewed.4 In recent years, with comprehensive tobacco con-trol programs, Australian tobacco smoking prevalence rates have decreased by about 1 percentage point per year.5 Australian tobacco control programs in-clude media education campaigns, legislation (bans on smoking in public places, graphic warnings on packaging, point-of-sale adver-tising bans), and heavy tobacco product taxa-tion. Although smoking-related cancers have declined after several decades of successful tobacco control efforts,6 further efforts to ex-pand the range of effective prevention strategies are needed and should be similarly beneficial. In 2004 and 2005, 23 % of adults (aged 18 years or older) in Australia were current tobacco smokers, with 21 % smoking daily and 2 % less than daily; 30 % were ex-smokers; and 47 % had never smoked.7 Quantifying the importance of investing in further prevention initiatives is crucial given that only 3 % of Australian health expendi-tures are devoted to prevention and health promotion.8,9 Such efforts are timely in that they provide added impetus to the important work of the National Preventative Health Taskforce (which is focused on tobacco, obe-sity, and alcohol use)10 and lend support to the comprehensive strategies and work plans of important Australian health promotion organi-zations with tobacco control objectives (th