Effects of Graphic Health Warning on Cigarette Package on Thai Smoking Prevalence

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the effects of the graphic health warnings (GHW) on cigarette package on the smoking prevalence of Thai people aged between 15 and 60+, which is categorized into eight age groups, during 2001 and 2011. Since at different age, people might response differently to the same factor, the Multi-Level Model is used to analyze the possible different effects of the GHW on the smoking prevalence of different age groups. The main result shows that GHW has only small impact on smoking prevalence and is relatively more effective for teenagers and retirees. However, increasing the relative price of cigarette seems to significantly reduce the smoking prevalence, especially for teenagers and retirees. The results also show that GHW is more effective for people in the rural area when compared to the urban area. Although, the effect on smoking prevalence is still small, this signifies that the effectiveness of GHW might depend on the level of education or the literacy rate.