The African cigarette price data landscape: an overview of gaps and opportunities

Africa has the lowest cigarette taxes of any region. Price data are needed to produce evidence that informs tax policy change.

To locate and describe datasets that provide information on cigarette prices in African countries and to identify opportunities for expanding the region's cigarette price information base.

Three data repositories and relevant literature were searched to locate free datasets that provide cigarette prices for African countries. 13 categories of information were extracted from each dataset, including the type of data collected (self-reported vs observational). The number of outliers and summary statistics, for the price of 20 cigarette sticks, was calculated using the most recent data available from each data collection project identified in a country. T-tests were conducted to compare these statistics for the 14 countries with both self-reported and observational price data available.

A total of 131 datasets, covering 39/47 African countries, contain information on cigarette prices. Most datasets (N=111/131) provide self-reported information. Only 11 countries have used the three large-scale surveys that repeatedly collect information on smoking behaviour across Africa (Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, Demographic and Health Survey and STEPwise) to collect information on cigarette prices. No active projects that collect self-reported price data sample from the youth (aged<15). Prices collected through retail observations exhibit fewer outliers than self-reported prices (p<0.05).

The tobacco-control community should lead the process of using existing data collection efforts to enhance Africa's cigarette price information base. Increasing observational data collection efforts at retailers could improve our understanding of the prices paid for cigarettes in the region.