THE PHILIPPINES could save $687 million a year if it can convince 10% of its smoking population to shift to non-combusted alternatives, according to a De La Salle University study.
Associate professor Christopher James R. Cabuay said the findings were based on an estimate of $9.8 billion as the cost of smoking-related illnesses in 2019, including the cost of treatment and medicine shouldered by households.
“We are also talking about public resources that are dedicated to capacitating hospitals to treat these things, which is part of what we call the direct cost,” he said at the Consumer Choice Center briefing on Wednesday.
He added that indirect costs include lost productivity due to disability and death.
He said that the cost of smoking-related illness translates to about 2.48% of gross domestic product (GDP).
“Only a small part of that is… direct cost of treatment; the largest part of that is driven by smoking-attributable death,” he said.
The Philippines has one of the higher prevalences of smoking-attributable death relative to world averages.
For men, he said that prevalence in the Philippines is 23.2%, against the global average of 16.9%. For women, the corresponding numbers are 9.9% against 7.4%.
Citing the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, he said smoking prevalence in the Philippines was 18.5% in 2021, representing 14.4 million adult smokers.
“If, say, about 10% of the adult smoking population were to engage in tobacco harm reduction activities or they’re given this option, we could expect this cost of illness to decrease by $687 million annually, or 0.18% of GDP,” he said.
He said the issue is how the government can convince the public to shift.
“Who is going to bear the cost? Who’s going to provide the access (to alternatives)?” he added.
On Wednesday, the Consumer Choice Center brought together physicians, researchers, and consumer advocates from seven countries to discuss critical aspects of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
“We needed an honest conversation about what’s working and what isn’t in global tobacco control,” according to Fred Roeder, health economist and president of the Consumer Choice Center.
“Many countries have seen different results with harm reduction approaches, yet these strategies remain largely unexplored in Southeast Asian policy discussions,” he added. — Justine Irish D. Tabile