# PROJECT 5: IMPACT OF CHANGING TOBACCO PRODUCT USE ON HEALTHCARE COSTS FOR GENERAL AND VULNERABLE POPULATIONS

> **NIH NIH U54** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2020 · $485,935

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Healthcare costs play a central role in FDA regulatory impact analysis. Many factors contribute to tobacco-
attributable healthcare costs, including changing tobacco product use patterns, sociodemographic
characteristics, health status, and socioeconomic status (SES). The central goal of this project is to
develop economic models that analyze the impact of new patterns of tobacco product use on
healthcare costs for different populations including those that are particularly vulnerable. The project
focuses on cigarette smoking, e-cigarette use, and polytobacco use as common tobacco use patterns today,
and on rural/urban status, low SES, medical co-morbidities, and youth as examples of factors that cause
population groups to be particularly vulnerable to tobacco use. The goal will be accomplished by addressing
four specific aims: (1) Develop microeconomic models to estimate the healthcare costs attributable to e-
cigarette use; (2) Estimate healthcare costs attributable to cigarette smoking and e-cigarette use for vulnerable
populations: people with low SES, rural populations, people with medical co-morbidities, and youth; (3)
Develop microeconomic models to estimate the healthcare costs attributable to the most common
combinations of tobacco product use: dual use of cigarettes and e-cigarettes; dual use of cigarettes and cigars;
and polyuse of cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and other tobacco products; and (4) Analyze potential scenarios to
determine the likely impact of regulatory changes on healthcare costs based on findings from research
conducted by UCSF TCORS colleagues in laboratory and controlled human studies. Tobacco-attributable
healthcare costs will be estimated using econometric models and a factual/counterfactual approach, in which
costs among users of the product(s) of interest (i.e., the factual case) are compared with costs among people
with identical characteristics as the users except that they are assumed to be never tobacco users or sole
cigarette smokers, depending on the relevant comparison group (i.e., the counterfactual case). This project
addresses the UCSF TCORS theme that “understanding combined health effects, behavior, and impact
analysis will provide actionable information for regulation of and public communications about current and
emerging tobacco products” by developing economic models of the impact of tobacco use on health outcomes
and healthcare costs and integrating health effects from laboratory and human studies in simulations of the
impact on healthcare utilization and costs from changes in product characteristics and availability. The
relationship of tobacco use behavior and lost school days among rural youth will also be modeled. This
information is incorporated into economic models to improve impact analyses. The healthcare cost estimates
from this project will be useful metrics for measuring the impact of tobacco use on public health, allowing a
comparison of the relative magnitude of ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9999023
- **Project number:** 5U54HL147127-08
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** WENDY B MAX
- **Activity code:** U54 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $485,935
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2013-09-19 → 2023-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9999023

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9999023, PROJECT 5: IMPACT OF CHANGING TOBACCO PRODUCT USE ON HEALTHCARE COSTS FOR GENERAL AND VULNERABLE POPULATIONS (5U54HL147127-08). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9999023. Licensed CC0.

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