Franco Sassi – författare

In more than half of the OECD, 50% or more of the population is overweight. A key risk factor for a range of chronic diseases, obesity has become a major public health concern. This book contributes to evidence-based policy making by exploring multiple dimensions of the obesity problem.The authors, including special contributions from health and obesity experts Marc Suhrcke, Tim Lobstein, Donald Kenkel and Francesco Branca, challenge the perception that explanations for the obesity epidemic are simple and solutions are within reach. A detailed look at the data reveals a more complicated picture, one in which even finding objective evidence on the phenomenon is a difficult task. This important book examines the scale and characteristics of the epidemic, the respective roles and influence of market forces and governments, and the impact of interventions. It argues that efforts to prevent obesity and related chronic diseases can provide the means to increase social welfare and enhance health equity, relative to a situation in which chronic diseases are simply treated once they emerge. It outlines an economic approach to the prevention of chronic diseases that provides novel insights relative to a more traditional public health approach. Policy makers, health professionals and academics in public and social policy, as well as health economists who are trying to understand the epidemic and devise an effective strategy to counter it, will find this a vital resource.

Virtually all fiscal measures influence people's health, through their impacts on behaviour, consumption, income and wealth. A narrow subset of fiscal measures, however, can be more directly aimed at improving health by targeting behaviours and risks that are known to be strongly associated with health outcomes. The purpose of this book is to discuss the subject of these measures, which we define as "health taxes". The book aims to enumerate key health taxes of interest, explore their positive and negative effects, and how these effects are influenced by the design of these taxes and the context in which they are applied. We ask how and where they can be implemented. Critically, we build an argument throughout the book for why policymakers across government should care about health taxes.