Cargando…

The cost-effectiveness of increasing alcohol taxes: a modelling study

BACKGROUND: Excessive alcohol use increases risks of chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease and several types of cancer, with associated losses of quality of life and life-years. Alcohol taxes can be considered as a public health instrument as they are known to be able to decrease alcohol c...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: van den Berg, Matthijs, van Baal, Pieter HM, Tariq, Luqman, Schuit, Albertine J, de Wit, G Ardine, Hoogenveen, Rudolf T
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2637894/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19040717
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-6-36
_version_ 1782164378957643776
author van den Berg, Matthijs
van Baal, Pieter HM
Tariq, Luqman
Schuit, Albertine J
de Wit, G Ardine
Hoogenveen, Rudolf T
author_facet van den Berg, Matthijs
van Baal, Pieter HM
Tariq, Luqman
Schuit, Albertine J
de Wit, G Ardine
Hoogenveen, Rudolf T
author_sort van den Berg, Matthijs
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Excessive alcohol use increases risks of chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease and several types of cancer, with associated losses of quality of life and life-years. Alcohol taxes can be considered as a public health instrument as they are known to be able to decrease alcohol consumption. In this paper, we estimate the cost-effectiveness of an alcohol tax increase for the entire Dutch population from a health-care perspective focusing on health benefits and health-care costs in alcohol users. METHODS: The chronic disease model of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment was used to extrapolate from decreased alcohol consumption due to tax increases to effects on health-care costs, life-years gained and quality-adjusted life-years gained, A Dutch scenario in which tax increases for beer are planned, and a Swedish scenario representing one of the highest alcohol taxes in Europe, were compared with current practice in the Netherlands. To estimate cost-effectiveness ratios, yearly differences in model outcomes between intervention and current practice scenarios were discounted and added over the time horizon of 100 years to find net present values for incremental life-years gained, quality-adjusted life-years gained, and health-care costs. RESULTS: In the Swedish scenario, many more quality-adjusted life-years were gained than in the Dutch scenario, but both scenarios had almost equal incremental cost-effectiveness ratios: €5100 per quality-adjusted life-year and €5300 per quality-adjusted life-year, respectively. CONCLUSION: Focusing on health-care costs and health consequences for drinkers, an alcohol tax increase is a cost-effective policy instrument.
format Text
id pubmed-2637894
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2008
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-26378942009-02-10 The cost-effectiveness of increasing alcohol taxes: a modelling study van den Berg, Matthijs van Baal, Pieter HM Tariq, Luqman Schuit, Albertine J de Wit, G Ardine Hoogenveen, Rudolf T BMC Med Research Article BACKGROUND: Excessive alcohol use increases risks of chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease and several types of cancer, with associated losses of quality of life and life-years. Alcohol taxes can be considered as a public health instrument as they are known to be able to decrease alcohol consumption. In this paper, we estimate the cost-effectiveness of an alcohol tax increase for the entire Dutch population from a health-care perspective focusing on health benefits and health-care costs in alcohol users. METHODS: The chronic disease model of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment was used to extrapolate from decreased alcohol consumption due to tax increases to effects on health-care costs, life-years gained and quality-adjusted life-years gained, A Dutch scenario in which tax increases for beer are planned, and a Swedish scenario representing one of the highest alcohol taxes in Europe, were compared with current practice in the Netherlands. To estimate cost-effectiveness ratios, yearly differences in model outcomes between intervention and current practice scenarios were discounted and added over the time horizon of 100 years to find net present values for incremental life-years gained, quality-adjusted life-years gained, and health-care costs. RESULTS: In the Swedish scenario, many more quality-adjusted life-years were gained than in the Dutch scenario, but both scenarios had almost equal incremental cost-effectiveness ratios: €5100 per quality-adjusted life-year and €5300 per quality-adjusted life-year, respectively. CONCLUSION: Focusing on health-care costs and health consequences for drinkers, an alcohol tax increase is a cost-effective policy instrument. BioMed Central 2008-11-28 /pmc/articles/PMC2637894/ /pubmed/19040717 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-6-36 Text en Copyright © 2008 Berg et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
van den Berg, Matthijs
van Baal, Pieter HM
Tariq, Luqman
Schuit, Albertine J
de Wit, G Ardine
Hoogenveen, Rudolf T
The cost-effectiveness of increasing alcohol taxes: a modelling study
title The cost-effectiveness of increasing alcohol taxes: a modelling study
title_full The cost-effectiveness of increasing alcohol taxes: a modelling study
title_fullStr The cost-effectiveness of increasing alcohol taxes: a modelling study
title_full_unstemmed The cost-effectiveness of increasing alcohol taxes: a modelling study
title_short The cost-effectiveness of increasing alcohol taxes: a modelling study
title_sort cost-effectiveness of increasing alcohol taxes: a modelling study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2637894/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19040717
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-6-36
work_keys_str_mv AT vandenbergmatthijs thecosteffectivenessofincreasingalcoholtaxesamodellingstudy
AT vanbaalpieterhm thecosteffectivenessofincreasingalcoholtaxesamodellingstudy
AT tariqluqman thecosteffectivenessofincreasingalcoholtaxesamodellingstudy
AT schuitalbertinej thecosteffectivenessofincreasingalcoholtaxesamodellingstudy
AT dewitgardine thecosteffectivenessofincreasingalcoholtaxesamodellingstudy
AT hoogenveenrudolft thecosteffectivenessofincreasingalcoholtaxesamodellingstudy
AT vandenbergmatthijs costeffectivenessofincreasingalcoholtaxesamodellingstudy
AT vanbaalpieterhm costeffectivenessofincreasingalcoholtaxesamodellingstudy
AT tariqluqman costeffectivenessofincreasingalcoholtaxesamodellingstudy
AT schuitalbertinej costeffectivenessofincreasingalcoholtaxesamodellingstudy
AT dewitgardine costeffectivenessofincreasingalcoholtaxesamodellingstudy
AT hoogenveenrudolft costeffectivenessofincreasingalcoholtaxesamodellingstudy