Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

This paper aims to estimate through a cohort markov model the efficiency of the tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) implemented in Catalonia in May 2017. The effectiveness will be measured in terms of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). The variation as a consequence of the implementation of the tax in the DALYS associated to 25 health conditions and diseases connected to obesity will be obtained for the 2017 Catalan population. The costs considered in the model will be the impact of the tax on the use of public healthcare system and the costs of design and implementation of the tax. These costs and effects will be considered over a period of ten years. The model will be populated with data that will be obtained from several sources: literature reviews, specific cost analyses of the regional bodies in charge of designing and implementing the tax and individual data from the 2017 Catalan health survey. For the key parameter of the impact of the tax on the consumption of SSBs, results for two recent studies based on microdata from two large Catalan supermarket chains will be used. Probabilistic sensitivity analyses will be carried out and when relevant results will be presented by age and sex groups.