FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
May 5, 2000
CONTACT: Carole Gan
[email protected]
(916) 734-9040
http://news.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
UC DAVIS STUDY ESTIMATES COUNTS AND COSTS OF U.S. CHILDREN WHOSE MOTHER OR FATHER DIED FROM SMOKING
(Davis, CA) -- Deaths due to smoking leave hundreds of thousands of youth in the United States motherless or fatherless, and the resulting taxpayer costs included nearly $2 billion in Social Security Survivors Insurance costs in 1994 alone, says UC Davis epidemiologist Bruce Leistikow. His study is published in the May issue of Preventive Medicine.
"Deaths from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and injury are common in smokers of child-rearing age (ages 15 to 54)," says Leistikow, assistant professor of epidemiology and preventive medicine at UC Davis Health System. "In fact, a quarter of continuing smokers die during middle age. Yet no studies have assessed the impact of smoking-attributable deaths on children, families and tax-funded Social Security Survivors Insurance."
Previously published studies have underestimated or not included the impact of smoking-attributable deaths on children and the costs of Survivors Insurance. The UC Davis study is the first to estimate the number of deaths associated with smoking for men and women of child-rearing age in the United States, the number of youths left motherless and fatherless from smoking-attributable deaths, and the costs to U.S. taxpayers who contribute to Social Security Survivors Insurance payments to dependent children who have lost a parent.
For the year 1994, Leistikow estimates that there were 220,000 fatherless and 86,000 motherless youths under the age of 18 who had lost a parent to cancer, stroke, heart or lung disease or injury that he could attribute to smoking. In 1994 alone, he estimates that 31,000 youths lost a father and 12,000 youths lost a mother to smoking-attributable death. Such losses of parents may cost U.S. taxpayers as much as $4 billion a year in Survivors Insurance contributions. And by including the number of 18 and 19 year-olds who are still in high school and have lost a parent to a smoking-attributable death, the impact of smoking increases, adding thousands of bereft children and an estimated $500 million a year in Survivors Insurance costs.
"The death of a parent is one of the most traumatic experiences a youth may have," says Leistikow. "Up to 40 percent of bereft children show emotional disturbance a year after the death of a parent, and over a longer-term, such children may have a fivefold increase in childhood psychiatric disorder. Studies also suggest that adults who lost a parent in childhood are more vulnerable to depression, anxiety, attempted suicide, and posttraumatic stress disorder.
"The impact on society is equally great in terms of lost potential and productivity, as youths forgo education to care for a dying parent and have hopes forestalled by the experience of premature death. As a society, we need to take measures to further quantify, treat and prevent the myriad of losses associated with smoking."
For a copy of the study, contact Carole Gan in the public affairs department or Dr. Leistikow at (530) 752-3239 or [email protected]. An abstract of the article is available at http://www.idealibrary.com/links/doi/10.1006/pmed.2000.0657
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