You are here

  • Home
  • Online First
  • Assessing the effects of minimum floor price laws on tobacco use among youth in the state of Virginia, USA: an agent-based simulation approach

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Original research
Assessing the effects of minimum floor price laws on tobacco use among youth in the state of Virginia, USA: an agent-based simulation approach
  1. Shuo-Yu Lin1,
  2. Hemant Purohit2,
  3. Randy Koch3,
  4. Andrew J Barnes4,
  5. Rashelle B Hayes5,
  6. Xiaoquan Zhao6,
  7. Hong Xue1
  1. 1Department of Health Administration and Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA
  2. 2Department of Information Sciences and Technology, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA
  3. 3Department of Psychology and the Center for the Study of Tobacco Products, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA
  4. 4Department of Health Behavior and Policy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA
  5. 5Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA
  6. 6Department of Communication, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Hong Xue; hxue4{at}gmu.edu

Abstract

Background Preventing youth exposure to cigarette smoking is a public health priority. One of the most effective ways to reduce tobacco use is to increase the prices of tobacco products. Minimum floor price laws (MFPLs) are a relatively new but more feasible strategy that sets a price below which the product cannot be sold. We aim to examine the effects of minimum floor prices (MFPs) on tobacco use among youth in Virginia.

Methods An agent-based modelling (ABM) was developed from bottom-up to evaluate the influence of increasing the cigarette MFPs on middle and high school students’ smoking behaviour in the state of Virginia. A rational-addiction model was integrated to model the smoking decision of youth under the dynamic utility maximisation framework within the ABM.

Results The model predicted that every 10% increase in the MFP in Virginia could prevent 2232 8th graders and 1890 12th graders from cigarette smoking, a 2.4% and 1.8% reduction in median smoking prevalence. For students who smoked, 8th and 12th graders would consume 0.36 and 0.45 fewer cigarettes per smoking day if experiencing a 10% increase in the MFP from the baseline US$7.50 to US$8.30. The MFP level that produces the maximal response was estimated to be between 10% and 30%.

Conclusions MFPLs provide local jurisdictions with a potentially effective strategy to reduce tobacco use and mitigate-related harms among youth.

  • Public policy
  • Price
  • End game

Data availability statement

Data are available on reasonable request. Netlogo codes for the ABM simulation will be made available on Netlogo User Community.

https://doi.org/10.1136/tc-2024-058801

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Data availability statement

    Data are available on reasonable request. Netlogo codes for the ABM simulation will be made available on Netlogo User Community.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors Concept and design S-YL, XZ and HX. Acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data S-YL, RK, AJB, XZ and HX. Drafting of the manuscript S-YL and HX. Statistical analysis S-YL and XH. Administrative, technical or material support HP and XZ. Supervision: HX. S-YL and HX had full access to all of the data in the study and acted as the guarantor for the overall content of the work. All authors participated in the critical revision of the manuscript, and read and approved the final manuscript.

    • Funding The study is funded in part by a large research grant from the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth.

    • Disclaimer The content of the paper is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funders.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.