Health and Distributional Impacts of a Tax on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages in Kazakhstan
The promotion of healthy diets is at the center of many strategies to prevent and control noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) worldwide. Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) are the target of many of these strategies given their contribution to obesity and...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/965481592449291519/Support-for-Sugary-Drinks-Taxes-Health-and-Distributional-Impacts-of-a-Tax-on-Sugar-Sweetened-Beverages-in-Kazakhstan http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33970 |
| Summary: | The promotion of healthy diets is at the
center of many strategies to prevent and control
noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) worldwide. Sugar-sweetened
beverages (SSB) are the target of many of these strategies
given their contribution to obesity and related diseases. In
addition to detrimental health effects, overconsumption of
SSBs can result in economic costs derived from health care
expenditures, forgone productivity, permanent disability,
and premature death. The World Health Organization (WHO
2017a) has concluded that one of the most effective tools
for reducing obesity rates and other related NCDs is the
implementation of taxes to increase the prices of SSBs by at
least 20 percent. Epidemiological models indicate that
taxing SSBs by sugar content could result in a 200
million-pound (90.7 million kilogram) weight reduction
worldwide (Grummon, et al. 2019). This report represents the
first adaptation of the extended cost-benefit analysis
methodology to examine taxes on SSBs. The main outcome of
interest is the net effect of the taxes on household income
via three channels: (1) larger amount of household budget
expenditure on SSBs, (2) savings in out-of-pocket (OOP)
spending on health care because of lower disease incidence
associated with reduced SSB consumption, and (3) higher
labor income resulting from an increase in life-expectancy.
The model uses the simplified assumption that a reduction in
the consumption of SSBs has an immediate effect on health
and so on employment-related income. |
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