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Systems simulation model for assessing the sustainability and synergistic impacts of sugar-sweetened beverages tax and revenue recycling on childhood obesity prevention

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Journal of the Operational Research Society

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed prominent calls to tax sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) to prevent obesity in the United States. Despite efforts to evaluate this proposed policy, limited data and no framework exist for evaluating long-term, dynamic, cumulative health impacts of taxing SSBs while recycling revenue to support related interventions. Systems simulation models offer an important new lens for evaluating policy interventions, but such models have traditionally under-conceptualized key implementation science concerns, such as sustainability, revenue recycling, and bringing interventions to scale. Using a system dynamics model representing implementation dynamics, this study contributes a simulation model to inform policymakers’ understanding of how allocating revenue collected by SSB taxation across sustainable implementation strategies might maximize benefits of such taxation for childhood obesity prevention.

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Acknowledgements

The study was supported by research grants from the Chinese National Social Science Foundation (12CGL103), the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) (research grants 1R01HD064685-01A1 and U54HD070725 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development [NICHD]). The U54 project is co-funded by the NICHD and the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China

    Shiyong Liu

  2. University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, USA

    Shiyong Liu, Hong Xue & Youfa Wang

  3. University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

    Nathaniel Osgood

  4. Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China

    Qi Gao

  5. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA

    Hong Xue & Youfa Wang

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  1. Shiyong Liu
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  2. Nathaniel Osgood
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  3. Qi Gao
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  4. Hong Xue
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  5. Youfa Wang
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Correspondence to Shiyong Liu.

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Liu, S., Osgood, N., Gao, Q. et al. Systems simulation model for assessing the sustainability and synergistic impacts of sugar-sweetened beverages tax and revenue recycling on childhood obesity prevention. J Oper Res Soc 67, 708–721 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/jors.2015.99

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