Cigarette Smoking and Nursing Home Utilization in the United States

The Cigarette Smoking and Nursing Home Utilization in the United States represents a timely, thoughtful, and pioneering examination of the relationship between cigarette smoking and the cost of nursing home care. Although there have been many studies of the cost of smoking, very few studies have focused on the costs of nursing home care due to smoking. This book takes us through a comprehensive literature review of the risk factors affecting nursing home utilization, the epidemiology of smoking and disease, mortality due to smoking, and use of medical care services caused by smoking. Dr. Zhang is most innovative in demonstrating that a smoking spouse increased the likelihood of widowhood, which in turn increased his/her use and cost of nursing home care. It shows that the higher rate of premature death of smoking spouses resulted in a higher probability of widowhood and a higher rate of nursing home care and higher nursing home costs. This careful and thorough analysis represents a major contribution to the literature on the cost of smoking, and it is a ‘must'' read for researchers and economists interested in improving the methodology for estimating cost of illness studies.