Future work will include the application of these estimates in cost-effectiveness analyses of interventions. Chronic Illness Professor Rice and her colleagues have estimated the costs of many different psychiatric diagnoses and other chronic illnesses. Ongoing research areas include the impact of chronic illness on health care utilization and expenditures and the economics of disability. Tobacco Professor Rice published a landmark study on the cost of the health effects of smoking in 1986. That study led the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop a software package to be used by states and localities in estimating their smoking-related costs.
Researchers continue to work and expand efforts in the area of tobacco economics.
Professor Rice and her colleagues are currently working on an econometric refinement of this approach, involving a series of models at the national and state level. This research continues, as will work estimating the impact of smoking-related diseases on lost productivity. Emerging areas of interest include the economic impact of passive exposure to environmental tobacco smoke to children and the cost of smoking in nursing homes. Substance Abuse Professor Rice's work in the area of alcohol and drug abuse has been widely disseminated and is the basis for a software package designed to estimate state and local costs. Future work will include the impact of substance abuse on women, substance abuse in elders, the relationship of violence and substance abuse, and incentives for the treatment of substance abuse in managed care settings.