The costs of smoking in Vietnam: the case of inpatient care

Objective

To estimate the social costs of smoking related to inpatient care in Vietnam using 2005 data.

Design

The cost of illness as a result of hospitalisation for three major smoking‐related diseases combined with the prevalence‐based approach to obtain the costs of smoking in Vietnam for inpatient care.

Main outcome measure

Smoking‐attributable costs of inpatient care for lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and ischaemic heart disease.

Results

The total cost of inpatient health care caused by smoking in Vietnam reached at least 1 161 829 million Vietnamese dollars ($VN) (or $US77.5 million) in 2005. This represents about 0.22% of Vietnam gross domestic product (GDP) and 4.3% of total healthcare expenditure. The majority of these expenses are related to COPD treatment ($VN1 033 541 million or $US68.9 million per year) followed by lung cancer ($VN78 143 million, or $US5.2 million per year) and ischaemic disease ($VN50 145 million, or $US3.3 million per year). The government directly finances about 51% of these costs. The rest is financed either by households (34%) or by the insurance sector (15%).

Conclusions

The social costs of smoking in Vietnam as the percentage of GDP is lower compared to estimates from high‐income countries. The true costs would be substantially higher if all smoking‐related diseases, outpatient care and mortality‐related costs are included. More research is needed to augment the estimates presented in this paper.