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Association of cigarette excise taxes and clean indoor air laws with change in smoking behavior in the United States: a Markov modeling analysis

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Abstract

The rates of cigarette smoking in the United States have declined over the past few decades in parallel with increases in cigarette taxes and introduction of more stringent clean indoor air laws. Few longitudinal studies have examined association of taxes and clean indoor air policies with change in smoking nationally. This study examined the association of state and local cigarette taxes and clean indoor laws with change in smoking status of 18,499 adult participants of the longitudinal 2010–2011 Tobacco Use Supplement of the Current Population Survey over a period of 1 year. Every $1 increase in cigarette excise taxes was associated with 36% higher likelihood of stopping smoking among regular smokers. We found no association between clean indoor air laws and smoking cessation nor between taxes and clean indoor air laws with lower risk of smoking initiation. Cigarette taxes appear to be effective anti-smoking policies. Some state and local governments do not take full advantage of this effective policy measure.

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Data availability

The current study is a secondary analysis of publicly available de-identified data (https://cancercontrol.cancer.gov/brp/tcrb/tus-cps/questionnaires-data) [29].

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01DA042738).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Hampton House, 624 North Broadway, Room 797, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA

    Ramin Mojtabai, Ryoko Susukida & Masoumeh Amin-Esmaeili

  2. Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Keeyana Nejat

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  1. Ramin Mojtabai
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  2. Ryoko Susukida
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  4. Masoumeh Amin-Esmaeili
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Contributions

Dr. RM led the study design, analysis, interpretation of the results, and drafted the manuscript. Dr. MA-E, Dr. RS, and Ms. KN were involved in the interpretation of findings and revising the manuscript. All authors critically reviewed the final version of manuscript and approved the final version.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Masoumeh Amin-Esmaeili.

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The TUS-CPS data were de-identified, are publicly available, and exempted from institutional ethical review.

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Mojtabai, R., Susukida, R., Nejat, K. et al. Association of cigarette excise taxes and clean indoor air laws with change in smoking behavior in the United States: a Markov modeling analysis. J Public Health Pol 45, 100–113 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41271-023-00458-x

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