The associations between prices and taxes and the use of tobacco products in Latin America and the Caribbean: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background

Although taxes that raise retail tobacco prices and industry-initiated price increases have been shown to decrease tobacco consumption, the scarcity of studies in Latin America and the Caribbean using household- or individual-level data in existing reviews limits their policy relevance.

Objective

To conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the association between prices and taxes and the use of tobacco products in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Methods

We searched six electronic bibliographic databases, two online search engines, two working paper repositories, and hand-searched seven journals. We included all quantitative studies that used any measures of individual or household tobacco use as an outcome, written in English, Portuguese or Spanish. We used random-effects meta-analyses to pool results across studies.

Results

We found consistent evidence that in Latin American countries, higher cigarette prices were associated with lower cigarette smoking participation, consumption and initiation and that effect sizes were large enough to be policy meaningful. Pooled own-price elasticities indicate that higher prices were associated with a less than proportional decrease in tobacco use (pooled own-price elasticities, participation: 0.14 [95% CI –0.22, –0.06]; consumption: 0.54 [95% CI –0.75, –0.34]; total: 0.75 [95% CI -1.14, -0.36]). We found no consistent evidence that socioeconomic status, age, sex, rurality, or geographic regions affected price responsiveness.

Conclusions

Our review confirms that taxes that raise tobacco prices can effectively lower tobacco use. Moreover, raising tobacco prices through increased taxes is anticipated to boost tax revenue due to the inelastic nature of the demand for tobacco.