Siu E, Thow AM. Linking health and finance ministries to improve taxes on unhealthy products.
Bull World Health Organ 2022;
100:570-577. [PMID:
36062244 PMCID:
PMC9421554 DOI:
10.2471/blt.22.288104]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2022] [Revised: 06/12/2022] [Accepted: 06/13/2022] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
Abstract
The World Health Organization recommends economic measures such as taxes on tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy foods and beverages as part of a comprehensive strategy for prevention of noncommunicable diseases. However, progress in adopting these so-called health taxes has been hampered, in part, by different approaches and perceptions of key issues in different sectors of government. Health promotion is the responsibility of health policy-makers, while taxation is the mandate of finance ministries. Thus, strengthening cooperation between health and finance policy-makers is central to the successful adoption and implementation of effective health taxes. In this paper we identify the shared concerns of finance and health policy-makers about health taxes with the aim of enabling more effective cross-sector cooperation towards both additional financing for health systems and changes in unhealthy behaviours. For example, new approaches to supporting health taxation include the growing priority for health-system financing due to the growing burden of noncommunicable diseases, and the need to address the health and economic damage due to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. As a result, high-level efforts to achieve progress on health taxes are gaining momentum and represent important progress towards using the combined expertise of health and finance policy-makers.
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