Background: Restricting price promotions on unhealthy food and beverages to reduce their consumption has been identified as a promising approach for improving population diets. This study modelled the potential cost-effectiveness of national regulatory restriction on all price promotions (including sales and multi-buy offers) of carbonated sugary beverages, in Australia, from a limited societal perspective.
Methods: UK data on the uplift in sales of carbonated sugary beverages when price promoted, together with Australian consumption data (under the informed assumption that price promotions across the two countries are similar), was used to estimate reductions in purchases and resultant changes in body mass index (BMI) following regulatory restriction on promotions. A multi-state, multiple-cohort Markov model was used to estimate the long-term obesity-related health (estimated using health adjusted life years, HALYs) and cost outcomes over the lifetime of the 2010 Australian population. The costs of the intervention included the cost of passing legislation in Australian parliament, the cost of assisting retailers with implementing the policy, the cost of marketing the policy and the cost of monitoring retailers to ensure adherence to the policy. It was assumed that there was no cost to industry.
Results: The regulatory intervention resulted in a weighted mean change in daily energy intake of -12kJ. This translated to a weighted mean change in weight of -0.11kg, leading to approximately 2063 HALYs saved over the lifetime of the modelled population. Lifetime intervention costs were estimated to be AUD 17.0 million, with lifetime healthcare cost savings of approximately AUD 23.2 million. The intervention was likely to be dominant, resulting in long term cost savings and health benefits.
Conclusions: This analysis demonstrated that a regulatory restriction on price promotions of carbonated sugary beverages is likely to be highly cost-effective as an obesity prevention intervention.