In addition to restricting tobacco use at work, employers can do something else to reduce smoking: Raise wages.
“The percentage of workers in low-paying jobs has been growing nationwide,” says study senior author Paul Leigh, professor of public health sciences and researcher with the Center for Healthcare Policy and Research at University of California, Davis.
“Increasing the minimum wage could have a big impact on a significant health threat.”
Leigh and lead author Juan Du, who received her doctoral degree from UC Davis, wanted to know if wage changes could leverage a further reduction in the number of people who smoke.
The team evaluated data on wages, smoking status and state of residence for full-time employees aged 21 to 65 years from the 1999 to 2009 Panel Study of Income Dynamics. They also excluded those who never smoked, as the goal was to evaluate influences on quitting rather than starting smoking.
“We assume that people begin smoking for reasons other than wages,” says Leigh. “About 90 per cent of smokers in the United States started smoking before age 20, so the data captured a sample of most full-time workers who have ever smoked.”
Leigh and Du used a statistical model in their evaluation that is traditionally applied in economics called instrumental variables analysis. The technique is designed to mimic a randomised, controlled medical study to determine the effectiveness of a particular treatment.
Changes in the “treatment,” which in this case was wages, were measured for each year and then compared to smoking rates in the subsequent year, revealing the role of wage increases on reducing smoking among men and the less educated.
Smoking prevalence was lower overall in states with higher minimum wages or higher rates of unionisation.
— www.futurity.org
