Original Source

The potential impact of food taxes and subsidies on cardiovascular disease and diabetes burden and disparities in the United States

BMC Medicine

Volume: 15: 208

27 NOV 2017

Peñalvo, J. L., Cudhea, F., Micha, R., Rehm, C. D., Afshin, A., & Whitsel, L.

38

Yes

From the source: "This research was supported by the NIH, NHLBI (R01 HL115189, PI Mozaffarian)."

From the source: "DM reports personal fees from Boston Heart Diagnostics, Haas Avocado board, Astra Zeneca, GOED, DSM, Life Sciences Research Organization, and UpToDate, outside the submitted work."
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Summary

Summary is currently unavailable. Please see the abstract below.

Background
Fiscal interventions are promising strategies to improve diets, reduce cardiovascular disease and diabetes (cardiometabolic diseases; CMD), and address health disparities. The aim of this study is to estimate the impact of specific dietary taxes and subsidies on CMD deaths and disparities in the US.

Methods
Using nationally representative data, we used a comparative risk assessment to model the potential effects on total CMD deaths and disparities of price subsidies (10%, 30%) on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and nuts/seeds and taxes (10%, 30%) on processed meat, unprocessed red meats, and sugar-sweetened beverages. We modeled two gradients of price-responsiveness by education, an indicator of socioeconomic status (SES), based on global price elasticities (18% greater price-responsiveness in low vs. high SES) and recent national experiences with taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (65% greater price-responsiveness in low vs. high SES).

Results
Each price intervention would reduce CMD deaths. Overall, the largest proportional reductions were seen in stroke, followed by diabetes and coronary heart disease. Jointly altering prices of all seven dietary factors (10% each, with 18% greater price-responsiveness by SES) would prevent 23,174 (95% UI 22,024–24,595) CMD deaths/year, corresponding to 3.1% (95% UI 2.9–3.4) of CMD deaths among Americans with a lower than high school education, 3.6% (95% UI 3.3–3.8) among high school graduates/some college, and 2.9% (95% UI 2.7–3.5) among college graduates. Applying a 30% price change and larger price-responsiveness (65%) in low SES, the corresponding reductions were 10.9% (95% UI 9.2–10.8), 9.8% (95% UI 9.1–10.4), and 6.7% (95% UI 6.2–7.6). The latter scenario would reduce disparities in CMD between Americans with lower than high school versus a college education by 3.5 (95% UI 2.3–4.5) percentage points.

Conclusions
Modest taxes and subsidies for key dietary factors could meaningfully reduce CMD and improve US disparities.

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/