ArticleBMJ (Clinical research ed.)2019
Immediate impact of minimum unit pricing on alcohol purchases in Scotland: controlled interrupted time series analysis for 2015-18.
Article in BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 70 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
70 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 297 citations in OpenAlex.
- The relationship between the price and demand of alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food, sugar-sweetened beverages, and gambling: an umbrella review of systematic reviews.BMC public health · 2024Pooled it
- Are We in Control? How Best to Include a Control Group in Interrupted Time Series Designs: A Simulation Study.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2026Article
- Analysis of the impact of national centralized volume-based procurement drug policy on the market dynamics of tuberculosis drugs.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- What Are the Characteristics of Households That Purchase Alcohol-Free and Low-Alcohol Drinks in Great Britain in 2018 and 2021?Drug and alcohol review · 2026Article
- Mind the Gap: Exploring Social Inequalities in Alcohol Consumption using Nationally Representative Data from the 2019 and 2021 Health Survey for England.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Reduction in sugar intake after the introduction of minimum unit pricing for alcohol in Scotland: a difference-in-differences analysis.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2026Article
- Public health impacts of increasing the minimum unit price for alcohol in Scotland: A model-based appraisal.PLoS medicine · 2026Article
- Segmenting Increasing- and High-Risk Alcohol Drinkers by Motives and Occasions: Implications for Targeted Interventions.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Current and future trends in the consumption, sale and purchasing of alcohol-free and low-alcohol products in Great Britain, 2014 to 2023.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2025Article
- How does taxation affect liver cirrhosis across age groups? An analysis of alcohol control policies on liver cirrhosis outcomes in Lithuania between 2001 and 2022.Alcohol and alcoholism (Oxford, Oxfordshire) · 2025Article
- Socioeconomic position, alcohol use and alcohol-attributable emergency department visits.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2025Article
- The IARC Perspective on the Effects of Policies on Reducing Alcohol Consumption.The New England journal of medicine · 2025Article
- An evaluation of the impact of a national Minimum Unit Price on alcohol policy on alcohol behaviours.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Changes in socio-economic inequality in alcohol-attributable mortality in periods of increasing and decreasing alcohol affordability.Drug and alcohol review · 2025Article
- The impact of Scotland's minimum unit pricing for alcohol policy on people accessing services for alcohol dependence: A difference-in-difference structured interview study.Drug and alcohol review · 2025Article
- Alcohol consumption during pregnancy in Scotland following public health interventions: population-based study.BMJ public health · 2025Article
- Health-Related Quality of Life and Bereavement in the 2019 Georgia Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Do the Effects of Alcohol Excise Taxes Differ by Drinking Level and by Income Level?National tax journal · 2024Article
- Trends in purchasing cross-border, illicit and home-brewed alcohol: A population study in Great Britain, 2020-2023.Drug and alcohol review · 2024Article
- Article
10 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 6 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo assess the immediate impact of the introduction of minimum unit pricing in Scotland on household alcohol purchases.
designControlled interrupted time series analysis.
settingPurchase data from Kantar Worldpanel's household shopping panel for 2015-18.
participants5325 Scottish households, 54 807 English households as controls, and 10 040 households in northern England to control for potential cross border effects.
interventionsIntroduction of a minimum price of 50p (€0.55; $0.61) per UK unit (6.25p per gram) for the sale of alcohol in Scotland on 1 May 2018.
main outcome measuresPrice per gram of alcohol, number of grams of alcohol purchased from off-trade by households, and weekly household expenditure on alcohol.
resultsThe introduction of minimum unit pricing in Scotland was associated with an increase in purchase price of 0.64p per gram of alcohol (95% confidence interval 0.54 to 0.75), a reduction in weekly purchases of 9.5 g of alcohol per adult per household (5.1 to 13.9), and a non-significant increase in weekly expenditure on alcohol per household of 61p (-5 to 127). The increase in purchase price was higher in lower income households and in households that purchased the largest amount of alcohol. The reduction in purchased grams of alcohol was greater in lower income households and only occurred in the top fifth of households by income that purchased the greatest amount of alcohol, where the reduction was 15 g of alcohol per week (6 to 24). Changes in weekly expenditure were not systematically related to household income but increased with increasing household purchases.
conclusionsIn terms of immediate impact, the introduction of minimum unit pricing appears to have been successful in reducing the amount of alcohol purchased by households in Scotland. The action was targeted, in that reductions of purchased alcohol only occurred in the households that bought the most alcohol.
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