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Public attitudes towards pricing policies to change health-related behaviours: a UK focus group study.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Repository DOI


Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Somerville, Claire 
Marteau, Theresa M 
Kinmonth, Ann Louise 
Cohn, Simon 

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Evidence supports the use of pricing interventions in achieving healthier behaviour at population level. The public acceptability of this strategy continues to be debated throughout Europe, Australasia and USA. We examined public attitudes towards, and beliefs about the acceptability of pricing policies to change health-related behaviours in the UK. The study explores what underlies ideas of acceptability, and in particular those values and beliefs that potentially compete with the evidence presented by policy-makers. METHODS: Twelve focus group discussions were held in the London area using a common protocol with visual and textual stimuli. Over 300,000 words of verbatim transcript were inductively coded and analyzed, and themes extracted using a constant comparative method. RESULTS: Attitudes towards pricing policies to change three behaviours (smoking, and excessive consumption of alcohol and food) to improve health outcomes, were unfavourable and acceptability was low. Three sets of beliefs appeared to underpin these attitudes: (i) pricing makes no difference to behaviour; (ii) government raises prices to generate income, not to achieve healthier behaviour and (iii) government is not trustworthy. These beliefs were evident in discussions of all types of health-related behaviour. CONCLUSIONS: The low acceptability of pricing interventions to achieve healthier behaviours in populations was linked among these responders to a set of beliefs indicating low trust in government. Acceptability might be increased if evidence regarding effectiveness came from trusted sources seen as independent of government and was supported by public involvement and hypothecated taxation.

Description

Keywords

Adult, Age Factors, Aged, Alcohol Drinking, Costs and Cost Analysis, Diet, Federal Government, Female, Focus Groups, Health Behavior, Health Policy, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Public Opinion, Sex Factors, Smoking Prevention, Socioeconomic Factors, Taxes, Trust, United Arab Emirates

Journal Title

Eur J Public Health

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1101-1262
1464-360X

Volume Title

25

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)
Sponsorship
The study was funded by the UK Department of Health Policy Research Programme (Policy Research Unit in Behaviour and Health [PR-UN-0409-10109]). The Department of Health had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, or interpretation. The research was conducted independently of the funders, and the views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Department of Health in England.