The effects of smoking on health expenditure of Iranian households, a 30-year study

Abstract

In this study, we intend to work towards increasing the knowledgebase regarding the healthcare costs associated with smoking in Iranian households using a top-down approach, large datasets, and a long time-frame. Materials and Methods: We used the data from the Household Expenditure and Income Survey (HEIS) of Iran’s statistical center. MYSQL and R programming languages were used for data processing, statistical analyses and result generation. We pooled the adjusted data across all years and used GLM models (logit and gamma) to look for the effects of smoking and other determinants on healthcare use and costs. Results: Overall, our study included 3.68 million people in 836069 households across 35 years (from 1984 to 2018). The prevalence of smoking had a decreasing trend across the years of our study. Smoking status was a meaningful predictor of both health care use and costs in the country. we found a significant dose-response relationship between the packs of cigarette smoked each day and the use and costs of healthcare goods and services by the households.