Tobacco tax and price in the developed and developing countries in the World

Abstract

An ecologic study was conducted on 177 countries which the information of tobacco tax and price and also Human Development Index (HDI) was available in 2014. In this study, the relationship between HDI and four reported indexes by World Health Organization (WHO) was studied. These four indexes included: Tobacco affordability, Taxes as a percent of price of the most sold brand (total tax), Price of a 20 cigarette pack of the most sold brand international dollars at purchasing power parity (Priceppp) and Price of a 20 cigarette pack of the most sold brand in US at official exchange rates (PriceUS). The data of HDI and tobacco were mined from WHO and United Nations Development Programme sites respectively. To study the correlation between HDI and the variables of this study, Pearson correlation coefficient was used and also Linear Regression Analysis was used to study the relationship between HDI and the variables of the study. According to the findings of the linear regression analysis, there was a significant relationship between HDI and total tax (B = 0.81, CI 95: 0.63-0.99) and tobacco affordability (B = —0.35, CI 95: —0.42 —0.28). There was also a significant relationship between HDI whit price-ppp (B = 9.44, CI 95: 7.13-11.75) and price-US ;(B = 11.97, CI 95: 9.71-14.23). According to the findings of this study, less developed countries devote less tax on tobacco. Due to the rising trend of the prevalence and also development of non-communicable diseases such as lung cancer in developing countries, policy makers of these countries are required to design stricter policies toward tobacco production and supply as well.