Weinhold Diana, Chaloupka Frank J
Department of International Development, London School of Economics, London, UK.
University of Illinois, Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Tob Control. 2017 Mar;26(2):195-201. doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2015-052601. Epub 2016 Apr 20.
BACKGROUND/AIMS: A debate is currently underway about the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) methods for evaluating antitobacco regulation. In particular, the US government requires a cost-benefit analysis for significant new regulations, which has led the FDA to consider potential lost subjective well-being (SWB) of ex-smokers as a cost of any proposed antitobacco policy. This practice, which significantly limits regulatory capacity, is premised on the assumption that there is in fact a loss in SWB among ex-smokers.
We analyse the relationship between SWB and smoking status using a longitudinal internet survey of over 5000 Dutch adults across 5 years. We control for socioeconomic, demographic and health characteristics, and in a contribution to the literature, we additionally control for two potential confounding personality characteristics, habitual use of external substances and sensitivity to stress. In another contribution, we estimate panel fixed effects models that additionally control for unobservable time-invariant characteristics.
We find strong suggestive evidence that ex-smokers do not suffer a net loss in SWB. We also find no evidence that the change in SWB of those who quit smoking under stricter tobacco control policies is different from those who quit under a more relaxed regulatory environment. Furthermore, our cross-sectional estimates suggest that the increase in SWB from quitting smoking is statistically significant and also of a meaningful magnitude.
In sum, we find no empirical support for the proposition that ex-smokers suffer lower net SWB compared to when they were smoking.
背景/目的：目前关于美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）评估控烟法规的方法存在一场争论。特别是，美国政府要求对重大新法规进行成本效益分析，这导致FDA将前吸烟者潜在的主观幸福感（SWB）损失视为任何拟议控烟政策的一项成本。这种做法显著限制了监管能力，其前提假设是前吸烟者的主观幸福感实际上存在损失。
我们通过对5000多名荷兰成年人进行为期5年的纵向网络调查，分析主观幸福感与吸烟状况之间的关系。我们控制了社会经济、人口统计学和健康特征，并且在对文献的一项贡献中，我们还控制了两个潜在的混淆性人格特征，即外部物质的习惯性使用和对压力的敏感性。在另一项贡献中，我们估计了面板固定效应模型，该模型进一步控制了不可观测的时间不变特征。
我们发现有力的暗示性证据表明，前吸烟者的主观幸福感并未遭受净损失。我们也没有发现证据表明，在更严格的烟草控制政策下戒烟者的主观幸福感变化与在更宽松监管环境下戒烟者的主观幸福感变化有所不同。此外，我们的横断面估计表明，戒烟带来的主观幸福感增加在统计学上具有显著性，而且幅度也有意义。
总之，我们没有发现实证证据支持前吸烟者与吸烟时相比主观幸福感净损失更低这一观点。
