The impact of tobacco consumption on household catastrophic health expenditure in Türkiye

Background: Understanding the financial burden of smoking on households is crucial for developing effective strategies and policies to reduce smoking and mitigate its impact on household health. Aim: To investigate the relationship between smoking and catastrophic health expenditure in Türkiye. Methods: This cross-sectional study used microdata from household budget surveys conducted by the Turkish Statistical Institute in 2015 and 2019. The data included the socioeconomic characteristics, income levels and consumption patterns of various goods and services by individuals and households. We used the pooled logit model to analyse the factors influencing household catastrophic health expenditure, focusing on the smoking status of households. Results: The presence of a smoker in a household, an uninsured person, a disabled or ill member, and members with higher education were significant positive predictors of catastrophic health expenditure, while being poor, working and having school-aged children were significant negative predictors. Smokers within the household were the foremost contributors to the probability of catastrophic health expenditure, with a coefficient of 0.4101 and marginal effect of 7.94%. Conclusion: This study highlights the need for comprehensive tobacco control measures that analyse and use critical information from the interactions between public health and economic stability to reduce tobacco consumption and the associated financial burdens on households.