The association between changes in tobacco taxation and consumption of tobacco in adults : a systematic review

Abstract

Objectives: To investigate the association between tobacco taxation and changes in tobacco consumption among adults. To synthesis the evidence regarding differential effect of tax on smoking in adults. From this review, some policy suggestions would be obtained to enhance the effectiveness of tobacco control.

Methods and Results: Relevant studies published between 2008 and 2013 were searched and identified through PubMed, ISI web of knowledge and economics databases of IDEAS with combination of key words. Studies regarding the association between tobacco taxation and changes of smoking prevalence were included in this review. 162 articles were identified, 8 studies were found to be relevant with in this systematic review. All the studies were conducted in different areas with different sample size, study design, and outcome measurements. The results from these studies presented the negative association between tobacco taxation and smoking prevalence among adults. Based on the previous studies analyzed above, the reduction of tobacco use was varied by different prices increase according to the observational studies using the statistic analyze or modeling.

Conclusion: Tobacco taxation has been proved to the most effectiveness approach to lower the prevalence of tobacco consumption among populations, which could reduce the adverse health outcome to relieve disease burden and increase government revenues as well. The tobacco tax policy should based on their national conditions, otherwise, the effectiveness of reduction tobacco consumption would decrease due to unsuitable implementation.