Publication type
Report
Author
Publication date
November 15, 2023
Summary:
It is well established that smoking is associated with lower productivity and losses in economic output due to increases in mortality and morbidity for the smoking population (Reed 2023; DHSC 2017). Previous work for ASH published in 2021 looked at the relationship between smoking and employment status and smoking and earnings using data from a British longitudinal dataset, Understanding Society (USoc) (Reed 2021). The aim of this technical paper is to extend and adapt the methodology used in the 2021 ASH research to look at the relationship between the labour market outcomes related to productivity (employment and earnings), and:
1) Alcohol consumption (focusing in particular on heavy drinking as measured by the AUDIT-C test score);
2) Obesity (measured by Body Mass Index, or BMI).
Most of the analysis in this report uses the Understanding Society panel dataset. At the time of Reed (2021) only Waves 1 through 8 of the survey were available, whereas an additional four waves (9 to 12) are now in the public domain. Therefore, this analysis uses the most recent wave of the data. Where possible, previous waves of the dataset are also used to take advantage of the panel structure of the data to improve the robustness of the estimates. The analysis also uses earlier waves of data to rest for the potential impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on the estimated results where feasible.
The information available on obesity in the Understanding Society Data is more limited than for smoking or drinking, so this report also uses data from the Health Survey for England (HSE), a cross sectional survey dataset which contains additional data on obesity and overweightness in the survey sample, to supplement the analysis.
This research report is a part of the wider cross-risk-factor project and is designed to support the project narrative by providing new estimates of the relationship between the main labour market outcome indicators (employment and earnings) and smoking, drinking and obesity. The results are used to produce estimates of the aggregate productivity losses to the UK economy resulting from smoking, heavy drinking and obesity.
The cross-risk factor project looks at the economic impacts of high-risk consumption of tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy foods (see Jawad and Reed 2023 for the final report from the project, Holding Us Back). While smoking and drinking can be measured directly, in this report we have chosen to use obesity as a key indicator for the long-term harms of consuming unhealthy food.
Subjects
Link
https://ash.org.uk/uploads/CrossRiskFactorTechnicalReportV3.pdf?v=1700757987
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