Raising taxes to make tobacco products less affordable by significantly increasing their prices has proven to be the single most effective and cost-effective measure to reduce the number of people who buy and use tobacco and reduce the number of products they use each day.
Our Research Focus
The American Cancer Society (ACS) Tobacco Control Research (TCR) team has developed an affordability index that informs policymakers which subgroups need interventions to reduce their increased risk of tobacco use and tobacco-related deaths and disabilities because of increases in affordability where they live. Affordability increases when income grows at a faster pace than price. The affordability index is a combination of both price and income changes.
