As Indiana prepares for a statewide smoking ban(more: http://www.freetobacco.info/world-tobacco-news/indianapolis-smoking-ban-vote-is-tonight/) on July 1, a new study from Ball State University finds that 21.2 percent of Hoosiers admit to regularly lighting up a cigarette, a habit costing the state nearly $2.6 billion in productivity losses and $2.2 billion in health care costs each year. “Burden of Smoking among Adults in Indiana,” a report by Ball State's Global Health Institute based on 2010 data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), ranks the state 42nd worst in terms of percentage of population among the 50 states and District of Columbia.
Only eight states have higher smoking rates than Indiana. “We have known for decades that smoking is counterproductive for our health and plays a major role for the spiraling health care costs facing both employees and their employers," Kerry Anne McGeary, GHI director and Phyllis A. Miller professor of health economics, said in a press release from Ball State. “When combined with our reports on obesity and asthma, this report demonstrates that on average Hoosiers have health issues and engage in behaviors that put them at risk for chronic conditions."
She pointed out that on average, about 9,700 deaths per year in Indiana are attributable to smoking while the habit is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, accounting for one in five deaths or about 443,000 each year. "Smoking causes cancer, heart disease, stroke and lung disease, ailments that are preventable simply by not lighting up in the first place,” McGeary. “Smoking kills half of its users. About one person dies every six seconds due to tobacco. This data sends a clear message to smokers that they are involved in a very dangerous habit.”
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