OBJECTIVES : Prioritize evidence-based tobacco prevention strategies will greatly potential to reduce burden of smoking in Indonesia. The study objective is to determine the return on investment (ROI) associated with the implementation of tobacco control program.

METHODS: The OneHealth tool was used to estimate the economic benefits of tobacco prevention interventions. Costs are presented in United States dollars (US$) for the year 2020. Using the human capital approach, the economic benefits were described as the amount of lives saved and healthy life years earned. The monetary value of productivity gains is divided by the costs of the intervention to calculate the Return on Investment (ROI).

RESULTS: The results indicate that over a five-year period, an estimated 1,904 lives will be saved and 30,882 healthy life years will be gained to the Indonesian population. Intervention of excise taxes contribute to the majority of averted deaths (597 deaths) and mass media campaigns responsible to the most healthy life years gained (10,452 life years). The overall economic benefits (13.86 million USD) greatly outweigh the costs over a 5-year period (8.5 million USD). The ROI of the chosen packages will be 1.87, indicating that applying the tobacco reduction intervention would result in national welfare.

CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the findings suggest that investing in a tobacco control program will help the Indonesian government escape substantial direct and indirect costs. The findings suggested the evidence based tobacco control programs with efficient resources and significant economic benefits in the public sector.