The Health and Social Consequences of Alcohol Taxation and Control

Award Year: 2002	Investigator: Philip Cook	Budget: $264,159	Categories: History of Health Policy and Public Health, Alcohol Policy
Abstract: For his Investigator Award project, The Health and Social Consequences of Alcohol Taxation and Control, Dr. Cook produces a broad and comprehensive account of the economic and public health effects of alcohol-excise taxation, age-based prohibition, advertising restrictions, and other control measures. The interesting history of alcohol control and the alcoholism movement is developed as important background in understanding current debates. Other frameworks, especially those of economic theory and of public health, are developed as alternative bases for characterizing the problem and what should be done about it. Tobacco regulation offers an interesting point of comparison; tobacco and alcohol problems have much in common, but recent public policy approaches to these problems have differed. Finally, a set of recommendations about the appropriate level of control and taxation for alcohol are developed and related to the evidence on consequences.