Funding gaps for diseases caused by tobacco in Mexico: A subnational analysis – CIEP

Tobacco use results in increased health care expenditure and lost human capital

In 2018, nearly eight million people worldwide died from smoking-related diseases and 9.1% of disability-adjusted life years lost can be attributed to smoking (IHME, 2022)

In Latin America, it has been estimated that 8.3% of all health care expenditure can be attributed to smoking (Pichón-Riviere et al. aquí, 2016)

In Mexico, the population without social security receive healthcare mainly from the states’ health systems

This research explores whether budgeted state revenue from IEPS (impuesto especial sobre producción y servicios, “Excise Tax on Production and Services”) levied on tobacco is sufficient to cover health care costs for three diseases caused by smoking in each state under the assumption that these cover them

In every single state, a significant fiscal gap is observed in the amount needed just to treat only three tobacco-related diseases

Nationally, this deficit totals over 80 billion pesos and exists even if considering only tobacco-attributable costs

This gap would be much greater for the entirety of tobacco-related diseases.