De-normalizing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption: effects of tax measures on social norms and attitudes in the California Bay Area

Emily Altman, Dean Schillinger, Sofia Villas-Boas, Laura Schmidt, Jennifer Falbe and Kristine A Madsen

Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series from Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley

Abstract: BackgroundSocial norms can influence individual health behaviors. Shifts in social norms for smoking were critical for the effectiveness of tobacco control efforts such as excise taxes. Sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) excise taxes have been implemented in municipalities across the United States to reduce SSB intake and improve health. We sought to identify trends in social norms and attitudes about healthfulness of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption in the California Bay Area and examine whether social norms and attitudes changed following SSB taxes.MethodsData came from annual (2016–2019, 2021) cross-sectional surveys (n = 9128) in lower-income neighborhoods in Oakland, San Francisco, Berkeley, and Richmond. We assessed overall trends and compared pre-post tax changes in Oakland and San Francisco with comparison cities.ResultsWe observed a 28% reduction in social norms for SSB consumption (people’s perceptions of peers’ consumption) and variable reductions in attitudes about the healthfulness of SSBs. Relative to comparison cities, post-tax, perceptions of peers’ consumption of sports drinks declined in Oakland; attitudes about the healthfulness of sugar-sweetened fruit drinks declined in San Francisco.ConclusionsAmong lower-income populations, social norms and attitudes towards the healthfulness of SSBs meaningfully declined over time, with smaller tax-related effects. SSB taxes as well as the local media attention they generate appear to affect people’s perceptions of SSBs. Pairing SSB taxes with messaging campaigns may be more effective in de-normalizing SSB consumption.

Keywords: 4206 Public Health (for-2020); 42 Health Sciences (for-2020); Clinical Research (rcdc); Prevention (rcdc); Social Determinants of Health (rcdc); Cardiovascular (hrcs-hc); 3 Good Health and Well Being (sdg); Humans (mesh); Taxes (mesh); California (mesh); Sugar-Sweetened Beverages (mesh); Female (mesh); Male (mesh); Cross-Sectional Studies (mesh); Social Norms (mesh); Adult (mesh); Middle Aged (mesh); Young Adult (mesh); Adolescent (mesh); Aged (mesh); Sugar-sweetened beverages; Public health policy; Social norms; Health attitudes; Humans (mesh); Cross-Sectional Studies (mesh); Adolescent (mesh); Adult (mesh); Aged (mesh); Middle Aged (mesh); Taxes (mesh); California (mesh); Female (mesh); Male (mesh); Young Adult (mesh); Social Norms (mesh); Sugar-Sweetened Beverages (mesh); Health attitudes; Public health policy; Social norms; Sugar-sweetened beverages; Humans (mesh); Taxes (mesh); California (mesh); Sugar-Sweetened Beverages (mesh); Female (mesh); Male (mesh); Cross-Sectional Studies (mesh); Social Norms (mesh); Adult (mesh); Middle Aged (mesh); Young Adult (mesh); Adolescent (mesh); Aged (mesh); 1117 Public Health and Health Services (for); Public Health (science-metrix) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-soc
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/66j7c1hd.pdf;origin=repeccitec (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cdl:agrebk:qt66j7c1hd

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series from Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lisa Schiff ().