58,000 Deaths Annually from Smoking... Socioeconomic Costs of 12 Trillion Won

KCDC-Seoul National University Research Team Studies Smoking Harms and Economic Burden
159 Deaths Per Day... Affects 32% of Male Deaths

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] In South Korea, more than 58,000 people aged 30 and over die annually from 'direct smoking,' and the social and economic costs, including medical expenses, exceed 12 trillion won, according to a recent study.

On the 14th, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) announced the results of the "Study on Establishing a Research Foundation for Smoking-Related Harm and Measuring Socioeconomic Burden," conducted by Professor Cho Sung-il's research team at Seoul National University under a government research contract.

The research team selected 41 major diseases that can be caused by smoking, such as lung cancer and ischemic heart disease, and standardized the number of possible deaths and the direct and indirect social and economic costs.

As a result, the estimated number of deaths in South Korea in 2019 due to direct smoking was 58,036, averaging 159 deaths per day. These deaths were among those aged 30 and older, with 50,942 males and 7,094 females.

The 'attributable mortality rate,' which is the proportion of deaths among those aged 30 and over caused by smoking, was 32.3% (50,942 out of 157,479) for males, six times higher than the 5.3% (7,094 out of 133,468) for females.

The risk of death due to smoking was 1.7 times higher for current male smokers and 1.8 times higher for current female smokers compared to non-smokers. For former smokers, the risk was 1.1 times higher for males and 1.3 times higher for females. This study calculated the impact of past smoking by considering the time it takes for past smoking to affect current disease incidence, using smoking rates from 24 years ago.

The socioeconomic cost was estimated at a total of 12.1913 trillion won, combining direct costs of 4.6192 trillion won and indirect costs of 7.5721 trillion won.

Direct costs include medical expenses incurred from inpatient care, outpatient care, and pharmacy use, as well as round-trip transportation costs for hospital visits and caregiving expenses. Among these, medical expenses accounted for the majority at 4.0764 trillion won, followed by transportation costs of 87 billion won and caregiving costs of 455.9 billion won.

Indirect costs were divided into productivity losses due to premature death among the working population and productivity losses caused by time spent on medical care such as hospitalization and outpatient visits. Wage losses from premature death were estimated at 6.4606 trillion won, and wage losses due to medical care utilization were estimated at 1.1115 trillion won.

The KDCA has established a 'Smoking Harm Research Database' linking data from the National Health Insurance Service and Statistics Korea to periodically monitor deaths and socioeconomic costs caused by smoking. Additionally, to understand the scale of harm from secondhand smoke in South Korea, the agency has built a limited 'household secondhand smoke exposure' database through this study and plans to conduct further analysis in the future.

Jung Eun-kyung, Commissioner of the KDCA, stated, "The potential loss burden of personal and social time and capital value due to diseases and deaths caused by smoking in South Korea is substantial. We will activate related research to provide strong scientific evidence for national anti-smoking policies."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.