Annual health care expenses are substantially higher for smokers and the obese, compared with nonsmokers and people of healthy weight, according to a report published online Dec. 24 in Public Health. In fact, obesity is actually more expensive to treat than smoking on an annual basis, the report author concludes.
To understand the financial impact of obesity and smoking, Ruopeng An, Ph.D., assistant professor of kinesiology and community health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, analyzed data from 125,955 participants in the 1996 to 2010 National Health Interview Surveys. The participants also took part in a subsequent survey on health-related expenses. The study focused solely on health-care expenditures: hospital inpatient and outpatient care, emergency department treatment, physicians' office visits, out-of-pocket expenses, and prescription drug costs.
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