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| For more information contact: John D. Law For immediate release New Report on Smoking-Related Deaths and Health Care Costs Released The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, Bureau for Public Health, has released updated data on the costs of smoking in West Virginia. Tobacco Is Killing (and Costing) Us contains statistics on tobacco use prevalence, cigarette consumption, smoking-related deaths and health care costs related to smoking in the state. In 2003, 27 percent of adults in the state were cigarette smokers, higher than the U.S. average of 22 percent. According to estimates, smoking kills 3,842 West Virginians every year, an average of 11 every day. Overall, nearly one in five (19 percent) deaths in the state from 199-2003 was related to cigarette smoking. The report also looks at individual county deaths because of smoking for the period 1999-2003. Wirt County had the highest percentage of smoking-related deaths at 27 percent, while Randolph County had the lowest percentage of deaths at 13 percent, Estimates of direct health care costs because of cigarette smoking in West Virginia in 2004 range from $846 million to $1.064 billion, depending on the economic model used. The bureau estimated that smoking-related productivity costs due to death of the smoker in that same year amounted to $1.012 billion. Combining these costs resulted in total costs to the state of between $1.858 billion and $2.076 billion in 2004. This did not include economic costs attributable to other forms of tobacco use such as snuff, chewing tobacco, cigars and pipes or second-hand smoke or productivity losses due to smoking-related illnesses. – 30 – |