Cigarette Prices, Smoking, and the Poor: Implications of Recent Trends

Abstract

Despite cigarette price increases after the MSA, income-related smoking disparities have increased. Increasing cigarette prices may no longer be an effective policy tool and may impose a disproportionate burden on poor smokers.

Responses to increasing cigarette prices in France: How did persistent smokers react?

“…Previous studies have shown that in other countries, particularly in the U.K. and the U.S, smokers in the lower income brackets are more sensitive to increasing cigarette prices [3][4][5] than in the higher brackets, but the authors of a recent American study concluded that low-income smokers are probably becoming less sensitive to cigarette prices than they once were [6]. Some authors have also suggested that no-smoking policies gained some ground at the start at all social levels, but are now challenged by a "hard core" of smokers [6,7].…”

“…Some authors have also suggested that no-smoking policies gained some ground at the start at all social levels, but are now challenged by a "hard core" of smokers [6,7]. Those smokers are less sensitive to price increases and tend to belong to the most underprivileged social strata.…”

Impact of tobacco prices and smoke-free policy on smoking cessation, by gender and educational group: Spain, 1993–2012

“…Although there are sufficient data to show that an increase in price reduces tobacco consumption (Becker, Grossman, & Murphy, 1994;Gallus, Schiaffino, La Vecchia, Townsend, & Fernandez, 2006), decreases the prevalence of adult tobacco use (Farrelly, Bray, Pechacek, & Woolery, 2001;Kinh, Ross, Levy, Minh, & Ngoc, 2006) and increases the likelihood of smoking cessation (Chaloupka & Warner, 2000;Forster & Jones, 2001), existing evidence of a possibly different price effect on different socio-economic groups is less conclusive. Whereas most studies have found that tobacco use among lower-income populations and persons of low socio-economic position is more responsive to price (Brown, Platt, & Amos, 2014;Hill, Amos, Clifford, Platt, & Amos, 2014;Thomas et al, 2008), some studies have failed to observe any differences (Franks et al, 2007;Wasserman, Manning, Newhouse, & Winkler, 1991) and other studies suggest that persons with a higher educational level may be more sensitive to tobacco prices either because they get a significant reduction in cigarette consumption (Lee, Hwang, Ye, & Chen, 2004) or because they are more motivated to quit smoking (Ringel & Evans, 2001).…”

Reducing inequalities in lung cancer incidence through smoking policies

“…Although there is controversy on the effect of cigarette price increase and smoking among the different socioeconomic classes [8,9], some studies have suggested that tobacco taxation (and resultant price increase) effectively reduces smoking prevalence in the lower socioeconomic groups [6,10]. The Royal College of Physicians has recently proposed increasing the retail price of tobacco 0169-5002/$ -see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.…”