Population health impacts and associated monetary gains from the taxation of salt and sugar in the United Kingdom

Abstract Poor diets contribute to significantly and increasingly to the burden of chronic diseases in the United Kingdom, impacting both health and the economy. The introduction of fiscal measures that target unhealthy foods could provide a near-unique opportunity to shifting diets at scale for the benefit of both social and economic sustainability. This study estimates the expected health and economic benefits from the reduction in consumption of salt and sugar for four scenarios, each reflecting different manufacturer and consumer responses to a proposed tax on salt and sugar. The results of this modelling show that life expectancy in the UK could be increased by between 1.7 months and nearly 5 months, depending on the degree of industry and consumer response to the tax. The tax could also lead to almost 2 million fewer cases of preventable chronic diseases over 25 years. In addition, economic benefits of approximately ￡27 to ￡78 billion from avoided ill-health could be achieved by introducing the proposed tax. The main part of these gains can be attributed to reduced mortality and morbidity from cardiovascular diseases. Our modelling show that significant benefits to both population health and the economy could be expected from the taxation of foods high in salt and sugar. The proposed dietary changes are likely to be insufficient to reach national public health targets; hence, additional measures to reduce the burden of chronic disease in the UK are equally critical to consider.