Elham Fatholahi, Mohammad Jafari,
Volume 21, Issue 1 (10-2023)
Abstract
Background and Aim: Products such as tobacco are considered harmful to human life due to the fact that they contribute greatly to mortality around the world. Tobacco use kills more than eight million people worldwide annually. This has necessitated the imposition of taxes on such harmful products with the aim of reducing their demand and, thus, guaranteeing the increase in the health of the population in Iran.
Materials and Methods: Using the tobacco tax as a proxy for the tax on harmful products and the death rate as an indicator of the general health of the population, this study investigated the effect of the tax on harmful products on the health of the population in 30 provinces of Iran between 2007 and 2018. For this purpose, the dynamic panel generalized moment method (GMM) using Eviews 10 and stata17 software was used as an experimental estimation technique.
Results: Analysis of the data collected revealed that the tax on harmful products can help promote the health of the population, since the government can use the additional income thus generated to improve the health of the population. These findings support the World Health Organization's justification that taxes on harmful products, especially on tobacco, not only can reduce their consumption, but also can help to promote health outcomes. In addition, increasing the tax on cigarettes, which is considered the most important and key strategy by the World Health Organization, will lead to spending the resulting income on improving health and educational infrastructure, health centers, emergency services, etc.
Conclusion: In general, the more a government spends on health care, the more the health of the population and, consequently, the higher the life expectancy of the population. Regarding the effects of prices/and taxes on smoking or tobacco consumption on the mortality reduction in Iran, if the taxes imposed on harmful products are increased and the resulting additional funds are used and effectively administered to meet the recommendations of the World Health Organization, better desirable outcomes will result in the health of the population as compared to those observed in this study. In addition, the policymakers should start actions that will help promote economic growth, because this will increase the health of the population. Moreover, actions and efforts aiming to increase the population growth rate should be accompanied by significant investments in the health sector.
