Quantifying the disease impact of cigarette smoking with SAMMEC II software

Abstract

Smoking-Attributable Mortality, Morbidity, and Economic Costs Software, Release II (SAMMEC II) has been developed for the Office on Smoking and Health, Public Health Service, to permit rapid calculation of deaths, years of potential life lost, direct health-care costs, indirect mortality costs, and disability costs associated with cigarette smoking. For the mortality-related measures, age-specific and age-adjusted rates are also calculated. The pivotal epidemiologic measure in these calculations is the smoking-attributable fraction, and attributal risk measure. A multiple-measure approach (attributable mortality and economic costs) to quantifying a health problem is termed "disease impact estimation." Previously, national and State-specific estimates of smoking-attributable mortality and economic costs were calculated using SAMMEC software, the predecessor of SAMMEC II. SAMMEC II is completely menu-driven and operates within the Lotus 1-2-3 software as a set of linked spreadsheets. SAMMEC II adapts national epidemiologic methods for use by State and local health departments. Increased exposure of public health professionals to disease impact estimation techniques, as demonstrated by SAMMEC II, will lead to improvements in both methodology and the quality of smoking-related health data. The primary purpose of SAMMEC II, however, is to provide State or locality-specific data on the health consequences of smoking to policymakers and public health professionals in these jurisdictions.