Recent research has attached a dollar figure to the cost of smoking, obesity and inactivity across Canada.
A new study published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health suggests that if every province was able to reduce the prevalence of these three risk factors to match the province with the lowest prevalence—which at the outset of the study in 2012 was B.C.—it would save the Canadian healthcare system $5.3 billion per year.
In a previous study, the same researchers found that the total annual economic burden for these three risks totaled approximately $50.3 billion in 2012 alone.
Read: Smoking rate falls to new low
“Even a modest 1% annual relative reduction in the prevalence of tobacco smoking, excess weight and physical inactivity can have a substantial health and economic impact over time at the population level,” they wrote.
The study found that in 2013, the average smoker cost the system $3,071. Overweight patients cost $868 while obese patients cost $2,556. Inactive patients cost $712.
But the total cost attributed to each of these risk factors has changed over time. The prevalence of obesity increased from 14.4% to 16% between 2012 and 2013 which has resulted in an uptick in costs.
The costs attributed to excess weight rose from about $10 billion to $10.7 billion. Over that same time period, the total economic burden attributed to smoking actually decreased from $21 billion to $18.7 billion.
This story originally appeared on our sister site, CanadianHealthcareNetwork.ca.
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