Tobacco control
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To identify key economic issues involved in raising the tobacco tax and to recommend possible options for tobacco tax reform in China. ⋯ The empirical economic analysis and tax simulation results clearly indicate that increasing the tobacco tax in China is the most cost-effective instrument for tobacco control.
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Tobacco control policies gained ground nationwide in 2006, with voters in nine states approving legislation to strengthen clean indoor air policies and increase tobacco excise taxes. Despite having the second lowest cigarette tax rate in the nation, Missouri was unsuccessful in passing its 2006 ballot initiative to raise the tax. An important way to encourage health-related policy change such as increasing tobacco taxes is through media coverage of tobacco issues. We examined how tobacco issues were presented in Missouri's print media leading up to the 2006 election. ⋯ The media have a critical role in promoting public health goals and presenting health issues which influences formation of health policies. Tobacco control advocates must consider public opinion, opposition pressure, timing and themes in tobacco-related media coverage when promoting policy change.
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(1) To present a model that predicts changes in cigarette consumption and excise revenue in response to excise tax changes, and (2) to demonstrate that, if the industry has market power, increases in specific taxes have better tobacco control consequences than increases in ad valorem taxes. ⋯ This paper presents a simple web-based tool that allows policy makers and tobacco control advocates to estimate the likely consumption, fiscal and mortality impacts of a change in the cigarette excise tax. If a country wishes to reduce cigarette consumption by increasing the excise tax, a specific tax structure is better than an ad valorem tax structure.
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To determine the extent of all forms of tobacco usage in adult Bangladeshis in relation to gender and locality. ⋯ Nearly a third of the population in Bangladesh use some form of tobacco. There are marked urban-rural and male-female differences. This difference is mainly accounted for by the higher prevalence of chewing tobacco in rural areas, rural female tobacco usage is close to double than the urban rate. Smoking rates were low in Bangladeshi females, more so in urban than rural areas. The tobacco awareness programme in Bangladesh might require putting emphasis on smokeless tobacco as well as smoking.
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To examine the prevalence of smoke-free homes in England between 1996 and 2007 and their impact on children's exposure to second-hand smoke via a series of annual cross-sectional surveys: the Health Survey for England. These comprised nationally representative samples of non-smoking children aged 4-15 (n = 13 365) and their parents interviewed in the home. Main outcome measures were cotinine measured in saliva, smoke-free homes defined by "no" response to "Does anyone smoke inside this house/flat on most days?", self-reported smoking status of parents and self-reported and cotinine validated smoking status in children. ⋯ There has been a marked secular trend towards smoke-free homes, even when parents themselves are smokers. Living in a smoke-free home offers children a considerable, but not complete, degree of protection against exposure to parental smoking.