Increasing Tobacco Use Cessation: Increasing the Unit Price of Tobacco Products

Task Force Finding*

Interventions to increase the unit price for tobacco products include legislation at the state or national level to raise the product excise tax. Although other factors also affect tobacco product pricing, excise tax increases historically have resulted in equivalent or larger increases in tobacco product price.

Interventions to increase the price of tobacco products are strongly recommends by the Task Force based on strong evidence of effectiveness in reducing tobacco use prevalence in study populations of adolescents and young adults. A detailed description of the evidence is provided in Hopkins et al. In addition, increasing the price for tobacco products is also effective in (1) reducing population consumption of tobacco products, and (2) increasing tobacco use cessation.

*From the following publication:

Task Force on Community Preventive Services. Recommendations regarding interventions to reduce tobacco use and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. [PDF - 1.46KB] Am J Prev Med 2001;20(2S):10-5.

Review completed: February 1999