Visualizing data: Trends in smoking tobacco prices and taxes in India

[摘要] Background: Tobacco smoking remains a leading risk factor fordisease burden globally. In India alone, about 1 million deaths arecaused annually by smoking. Although increasing tobacco prices hasconsistently been found to be the most effective intervention toreduce tobacco use, the documentation of prices and taxes acrosstime and space has not been an essential component of tobaccocontrol surveillance in most jurisdictions. This study aimed toexamine, using graphical methods, trends in smoking tobacco taxesand prices in India at national and state-level.Methods: We used retail prices, price indices, and unit values(household expenditures on a commodity divided by the quantitypurchased) collected and reported by government agencies. For bidisand cigarettes, we examined current and real (inflation-adjusted)prices, affordability (cost in terms of income), and key tax changes atboth national and state-level.Results: We show that real prices of bidis and cigarettes wererelatively flat (even decreasing in the case of bidis) between 2000 and2007, and clearly increasing from 2010. When rising income is takeninto account, however, both cigarettes and bidis have become moreaffordable since 2000. We found that some but not all tax changeswere accompanied by price changes and in particular, that taxdecreases did not result in price decreases.Conclusion: It is feasible to evaluate tax and price policies at nationaland regional level using routinely collected data.

[学科分类] 电子与电气工程

[关键词] smoking;tobacco;cigarette;bidi;India;price;tax;data visualization