The impact of tobacco control policies on smoking among older adults: A longitudinal analysis of 10 European countries

Abstract

Background Comprehensive tobacco control policies have been introduced in many European countries during the last decades. Earlier studies suggested an important impact of these policies on smoking behaviors on adults and teenagers. However little attention has been put to old adults, even though smoking cessation at old ages can still bring significant life expectancy gains. Our aim is to evaluate the impact of tobacco control policies on smoking among older adults in Europe from 2004 to 2013. Methods We used longitudinal data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) from 4 waves from 2004 to 2013. We measured the implementation of Tobacco Control Policies with the Tobacco Control Scale (TCS). We used linear probability models with country and wave fixed effects and panel data models with individual fixed effects [AK1] to relate the implementation of tobacco control policies with changes in smoking status. Furthermore, we studied whether these associations vary by education, sex and age. Results A 10-points increase in TCS was associated with a drop in the probability of smoking by 1.1 pp, at a close to significance level (P-value = 0.091). Pricing was found to be most strongly associated with smoking (P-value Conclusion Our results suggest that tobacco control policies have significantly reduced smoking prevalence among the European older adults from the year 2004. Rises in prices seem to be the most effective policies as compared to others, especially among the lowest educated.