Indirect costs include premature mor-
tality and consequential wage losses, as
well as short- and long-term disability.
An example might be someone with
osteoporosis in the joints related to
obesity that prevents them from gainful
employment, Krueger says.
88 BCBusiness oCtoBer 2014
Men Overboard
the cost of sick behaviour in B.C.
$864
These risk factors are implicated in
cancers, cardiovascular, respiratory
and musculoskeletal diseases and
diabetes. Direct costs include money
spent on hospital stays, physicians'
time and drugs.
million
$1.971
billion
Dr. Hans Krueger is a Vancouver health economist who has developed an economic model showing
the direct and indirect costs of smoking, excess weight and lack of exercise—three main risk
factors that are directly attributable to lifestyle-related diseases in B.C. Krueger has also calculated
the economic benefi ts of reducing these lifestyle-linked risk factors. His fi ndings are published
in The Economic Benefi ts of Risk Factor Reduction in British Columbia.
Costs of
smoking, excess
weight and inactivity
among B.C. men
in 2012
DiReCt
CoStS
inDiReCt
CoStS
