A new study of 16 countries shows higher taxes would help young smokers quit or cut down – and the call has gone out for SARS to get involved at home.
World No Tobacco Day serves to increase awareness about the preventable death and illness associated with tobacco use. It also puts a spotlight on policies that governments can use to reduce consumption of tobacco products.
As researchers who investigate economic aspects of tobacco-control policies, we conducted a study to understand the potential for tax-led price increases to reduce cigarette smoking among young people in 16 sub-Saharan African countries., we found that a high percentage of young people were smoking cigarettes. The rates were 17.8% in Zimbabwe, well over 10% in the Seychelles, Mauritius, Mauritania and Madagascar, and between 6.5% and 9.5% in Algeria, Cameroon, Gabon and The Gambia.
We found that tax-led cigarette price increases could be a powerful tool to encourage young people to quit, or to smoke less.Similar to findings from other countries and regions, our research also showed that young people in African countries are responsive to increases in cigarette prices – more so than adults. to price increases than that of adults because they haven’t been smoking as long, and they don’t have as much money to spend.
In our study, we estimated that more than half of the reduction in overall cigarette consumption following a price increase was due to young people quitting altogether. This is good news for public health in those countries that increase tobacco taxes. Studies clearly indicate that a person who smokes will realise much greater health benefits if they , our own research also showed that a young person was more likely to smoke if they had a parent who smoked.
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