TY - JOUR
T1 - The relationship between the price and demand of alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food, sugar-sweetened beverages, and gambling
T2 - an umbrella review of systematic reviews
AU - Burton, Robyn
AU - Sharpe, Casey
AU - Bhuptani, Saloni
AU - Jecks, Mike
AU - Henn, Clive
AU - Pearce-Smith, Nicola
AU - Knight, Sandy
AU - Regan, Marguerite
AU - Sheron, Nick
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.
PY - 2024/12
Y1 - 2024/12
N2 - Background: The WHO highlight alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food, and sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes as one of the most effective policies for preventing and reducing the burden of non-communicable diseases. This umbrella review aimed to identify and summarise evidence from systematic reviews that report the relationship between price and demand or price and disease/death for alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food, and SSBs. Given the recent recognition as gambling as a public health problem, we also included gambling. Methods: The protocol for this umbrella review was pre-registered (PROSPERO CRD42023447429). Seven electronic databases were searched between 2000–2023. Eligible systematic reviews were those published in any country, including adults or children, and which quantitatively examined the relationship between alcohol, tobacco, gambling, unhealthy food, or SSB price/tax and demand (sales/consumption) or disease/death. Two researchers undertook screening, eligibility, data extraction, and risk of bias assessment using the ROBIS tool. Results: We identified 50 reviews from 5,185 records, of which 31 reported on unhealthy food or SSBs, nine reported on tobacco, nine on alcohol, and one on multiple outcomes (alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food, and SSBs). We did not identify any reviews on gambling. Higher prices were consistently associated with lower demand, notwithstanding variation in the size of effect across commodities or populations. Reductions in demand were large enough to be considered meaningful for policy. Conclusions: Increases in the price of alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food, and SSBs are consistently associated with decreases in demand. Moreover, increasing taxes can be expected to increase tax revenue. There may be potential in joining up approaches to taxation across the harm-causing commodities.
AB - Background: The WHO highlight alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food, and sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes as one of the most effective policies for preventing and reducing the burden of non-communicable diseases. This umbrella review aimed to identify and summarise evidence from systematic reviews that report the relationship between price and demand or price and disease/death for alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food, and SSBs. Given the recent recognition as gambling as a public health problem, we also included gambling. Methods: The protocol for this umbrella review was pre-registered (PROSPERO CRD42023447429). Seven electronic databases were searched between 2000–2023. Eligible systematic reviews were those published in any country, including adults or children, and which quantitatively examined the relationship between alcohol, tobacco, gambling, unhealthy food, or SSB price/tax and demand (sales/consumption) or disease/death. Two researchers undertook screening, eligibility, data extraction, and risk of bias assessment using the ROBIS tool. Results: We identified 50 reviews from 5,185 records, of which 31 reported on unhealthy food or SSBs, nine reported on tobacco, nine on alcohol, and one on multiple outcomes (alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food, and SSBs). We did not identify any reviews on gambling. Higher prices were consistently associated with lower demand, notwithstanding variation in the size of effect across commodities or populations. Reductions in demand were large enough to be considered meaningful for policy. Conclusions: Increases in the price of alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food, and SSBs are consistently associated with decreases in demand. Moreover, increasing taxes can be expected to increase tax revenue. There may be potential in joining up approaches to taxation across the harm-causing commodities.
KW - Alcohol
KW - Price
KW - Price elasticity of demand
KW - Sugar sweetened beverages
KW - Tax
KW - Tobacco
KW - Unhealthy food
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85192898872&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1186/s12889-024-18599-3
DO - 10.1186/s12889-024-18599-3
M3 - Review article
C2 - 38730332
AN - SCOPUS:85192898872
SN - 1471-2458
VL - 24
JO - BMC Public Health
JF - BMC Public Health
IS - 1
M1 - 1286
ER -