Smoking, and excessive consumption of alcohol and unhealthy snacks are leading causes of years of life lost globally. Promising interventions include nudging – changes to the physical environment to “nudge” people toward healthier behaviours – and taxation. Implementing such interventions often requires government intervention, which is made more likely by public support. We examined support for these interventions in a survey with an experimental design involving 7058 English adults.
Overall 60% supported these policies with support varying by policy and behaviour. Putting graphic warning labels on products received strongest support (from 78%), followed by reducing product size (59%), then taxing the product (57%), and finally reducing the availability of the product (47%). All these policies received greater support when applied to tobacco than when applied to alcohol or snacks. Communicating policy effectiveness increased support with between 3% and 5% more people supporting a policy when informed it is effective. Quantifying the effectiveness did not add to the impact of a simple statement asserting that a policy was effective. Highlighting effectiveness could contribute to mobilising public demand for policies with potential to improve population health.
Reynolds, J. P., Archer, S., Pilling, M., Kenny, M., Hollands, G. J., & Marteau, T. M. (2019). Public acceptability of nudging and taxing to reduce consumption of alcohol, tobacco, and food: A population-based survey experiment. Social Science & Medicine, 112395.
