In this week's Statbusters, my column with Andrew Gelman in the Daily Beast, we take note of Slate's recent rant about "wasteful" anti-smoking advertising, and demonstrate how to think about cost-benefit analysis. The key point is: if you are going to make an extreme claim, you better have some numbers to back it up.
These numbers can be approximate, and based on (potentially dubious) Googled data. Not every analysis needs to be super precise.
The column is here.
Presumably many of the people who quit were older so their years of life saved isn't as great as younger people. Also probably doesn't undo the emphysema, COPD and heart disease that is common in older smokers, although risks are considerably reduced within a year or two of stopping smoking. Obviously can't reduce the years lost from dying before someone stopped smoking.
The way that works best is higher taxes, although it is possible that in places like Australia they now exceed the medical costs that our public health system spends on smokers. Australia is also greatly restricting the areas that people can smoke in public places.
In the end, I tend to sympathise with peoples right to smoke, the important thing is that it doesn't affect my rights.
Posted by: Ken | 11/25/2015 at 12:32 AM