Tobacco taxes paying dividend in New Zealand health system: study

New Zealand's policy of raising taxes on tobacco sales by 10 percent each year will add hundreds of thousands of quality life hours to the population over the next 15 years, according to a study out Wednesday.

It would also save around 3.87 billion NZ dollars (2.58 billion U.S. dollars) for the health system in the cost of treating tobacco-related illnesses, said University of Otago researchers.

The researchers estimated quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), a measure of disease burden that includes both duration and quality of life, gained for the country's 2011 population, Professor Tony Blakely said in a statement.

The model included 16 tobacco-related diseases for the 35 percent of the indigenous Maori population that smoked and 14 percent of the non-Maori that smoked up to 2031.

"This health gain of 260,000 QALYs is 17 percent of all health gain that we estimated would occur if all smokers in 2011 quit that year, and we followed or simulated the population into the future," said Blakely.

The QALY gains per capita associated with annual tobacco tax increases were 3.7 times higher for Maori than for non-Maori because of higher smoking levels and likely greater price sensitivity among Maori.

The health gains and cost savings were not predicted to peak for several decades.

"This is because smoking is more common among younger age groups and the tobacco tax effect is greater among young people, given their limited disposable income," said Blakely.

"These young people would not reap the maximum benefits from reduced rates of tobacco-related diseases for many decades to come, due to the long delay between taking up smoking and the incidence of tobacco-related disease in individuals."

New Zealand also banned the display of tobacco in shops and other outlets such as bars in July 2012 and the government has set a goal of a smoke-free nation by 2025. Endi