NEW DELHI: An ICMR study revealed that quitting tobacco could give a major economic uplift to the incomes of more than 20 million households in India, with rural areas and the poorest households possibly seeing the greatest impact.
Seven million middle-income families may also stand to benefit from quitting tobacco, the economic estimates published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) Global Health highlighted.
The researchers, including those from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-National Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research (NICPR) in Noida, said the results demonstrate that tobacco cessation is not only a health imperative but also a powerful economic tool for poverty reduction.
“In the Indian context, where childhood malnutrition remains a significant challenge, the economic benefits of tobacco cessation could contribute meaningfully to achieving better health outcomes for children, particularly in rural households where the economic impact is most pronounced,” the authors said.
The analysis also said that treatment of tobacco-related disease and productivity subsequently lost due to illness and premature death add up to global economic losses of more than USD one trillion every year, money spent on tobacco means less for essentials, including food and education.
Around 80 per cent of tobacco users live in low-and middle-income countries, where a significant proportion of household income is spent on tobacco products, they said.
The researchers said the findings show the direct economic benefits of tobacco cessation and that tobacco control needs to be integrated with poverty reduction strategies through increased taxation, cessation support programmes and awareness campaigns.
"Tobacco cessation could uplift 20.49 million households (10.6 per cent) to higher economic classes, with (a) greater impact in rural areas (11.64 per cent; 17 million) against urban regions (7.26 per cent; 3.5 million)," the authors said.
"Among the poorest households, 12.4 per cent (5.62 million) could improve their economic status, enabling spending on essential needs. Middle-income households demonstrate substantial upward mobility potential (16.8 per cent; 7.1 million)," they added.
The analysis looked at over 261,000 households from the Indian National Sample Survey (NSS) 2022-23 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES), to quantify the long-term economic benefits of quitting tobacco for households in the country and estimate how many families could therefore be lifted out of poverty.
Consumption of tobacco products, including bidis, cigarettes and gutka, was recorded for seven-day periods and monthly household expenditure was estimated, too.
The poorest households were noted to allocate the highest monthly expenditure per head to tobacco (6.4 per cent), as were households in rural areas (6.6 per cent).
Further, the proportion of a household's spend on tobacco was found to fall with increasing income, 4.4 per cent in poorer households, 3.6 per cent in middle-income households, 2.8 per cent in richer households and 2 per cent in the richest households.
"Rural households allocated a larger share of income to tobacco across all economic groups, suggesting the influence of specific cultural, social, and accessibility factors in rural areas", the researchers added.
They also said that tobacco consumption functions as a significant barrier to economic advancement for millions of households. The study insisted that support for quitting tobacco should not be considered as only a health intervention but also as a poverty reduction strategy.
“International development organisations should consider tobacco cessation support as a poverty reduction strategy, not merely as a health intervention, given its potential to achieve dual objectives of improved health outcomes and economic development with particular effectiveness in rural areas of (low and middle income countries),” the study concluded.