From: Loma Linda University
Loma Linda University researchers awarded $1.4 million NIH grant to study tobacco control in Asia
Researchers at Loma Linda University School of Public Health were recently awarded a $1.4 million grant from the NIH to develop new research methods for enhancing the effectiveness of tobacco-control programs in Cambodia, Laos and Mongolia.
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Singh and his colleagues will develop mobile applications for surveys in Asia that will enable 33 tobacco-control scientists and their staff to compile a database of where smokers are buying cigarettes. Street researchers will ask smokers for permission to photograph the tax stamps on their cigarette packets and geo-code the location of where the cigarettes were purchased. They will also record information about cigarettes that were sold without tax stamps, indicating that they were purchased illegally.
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He acknowledges, however, that there is a danger associated with raising tobacco prices too much. “It’s called price elasticity,” he says. “If you price tobacco too high, it turns into a black market. People buy cigarettes, repackage them and sell them without charging taxes. Or they buy loose tobacco for hand-rolled cigarettes or pipes made of bamboo or PVC piping.”
