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Price and cigarette consumption in Europe

¹ Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche "Mario Negri", Milan, Italy
² Cancer Prevention and Control Unit, Institut Català d’Oncologia, L’Hospitalet (Barcelona), Spain
³ Istituto di Statistica Medica e Biometria, Universita degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy
⁴ London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London University, London, UK
⁵ Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

Correspondence to:
Esteve Fernandez
MD, PhD, Cancer Prevention and Control Unit, Institut Català d’Oncologia, Av. Gran Via s/n, Km 2.7, 08907 L’Hospitalet, Spain; efernandez{at}iconcologia.net

Objective: To analyse the variation in demand for tobacco according to price of cigarettes across the European region.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: All the 52 countries of the European region.

Participants: For each European country, data were collected on annual per adult cigarette consumption (2000), smoking prevalence (most recent), retail price of a pack of local and foreign brand cigarettes (around 2000), the gross domestic product adjusted by purchasing power parities, and the adult population (2000).

Main outcome measure: Price elasticity of demand for cigarettes (that is, the change in cigarette consumption according to a change in tobacco price) across all the European countries, estimated by double-log multiple linear regression.

Results: Controlling for male to female prevalence ratio, price elasticities for consumption were –0.46 (95% confidence interval (CI) –0.74 to –0.17) and –0.74 (95% CI –1.13 to –0.35) for local and foreign brand, respectively. The inverse relation between cigarette price and consumption was stronger in countries not in the European Union (price elasticity for foreign brand cigarettes of –0.8) as compared to European Union countries (price elasticity of –0.4).

Conclusions: The result that, on average, in Europe smoking consumption decreases 5–7% for a 10% increase in the real price of cigarettes strongly supports an inverse association between price and cigarette smoking.

Abbreviations: GDP, gross domestic product; PPP, purchasing power parities; TCCP, Tobacco Control Country Profiles; UICC, International Union Against Cancer; WHO, World Health Organization

Keywords: ecological study; cross-sectional study; demand; elasticity; health economy; smoking

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