- Home
- Publications & Resources
- Perspectives
Employee Health and Productivity and Employer Dollars Are All Going Up in Smoke... Unnecessarily
Abstract
Although most employers know that reducing tobacco use among employees and dependents would provide health and productivity gains, many do not cover treatment for tobacco use. Evidence shows, however, that most smokers want to quit and that many more would do so if they had full coverage for a smoking-cessation program.
Potential, savings, while not immediate, are significant. Smoking costs the nation $96 billion in health care costs annually. Beyond causing nearly 90 percent of all lung cancers, cigarette smoking leads to numerous other forms of cancer, cardiovascular disease, aneurysms, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, adverse maternal birth complications and other illnesses. An estimated 8.6 million smokers currently live with at least one smoking-related illness, most commonly COPD, which is becoming increasingly prevalent. According to the American Cancer Society, tobacco use is responsible for nearly one in five deaths in the U.S. Because cigarette smoking and tobacco use are acquired behaviors – activities that people choose to do – smoking is the most preventable cause of death in the U.S.