In a study of Berkeley’s first-in-the-nation soda tax, researchers found that lower-income residents had reduced their consumption by 21 percent, compared to the pre-tax days and drank far more water, the Los Angeles Times reported. The study, published Tuesday in the American Journal of Public Health, looked at the impact of the tax in the first five months after it went into effect.
As Berkeley’s soda consumption declined, the study also found that residents in neighboring Oakland and San Francisco increased the amount of sugary drinks consumed by 4 percent during the same period.
“Instead of swilling as much Coke, Gatorade, Red Bull and Hawaiian Punch, the Berkeley residents boosted their water consumption by 63 percent. In the neighboring cities, low-income residents drank only 19 percent more water during the study period,” the Los Angeles Times said.
“While Berkeley is just one small city, this is an important first step in identifying tools that can move the needle on population health,” said Dr. Kristine Madsen, a public health researcher at UC Berkeley and senior author of the study.
The LA Times said researchers from UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco sent interviewers to busy intersections in census tracts with large numbers of low-income and non-white residents. They focused on these groups because they are “more likely to consume [sugar-sweetened beverages] and suffer related health consequences,” such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease, the researchers wrote.
“Interviewers asked residents in Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco how often they drank beverages in five categories: full-calorie soda, sports drinks, energy drinks, fruit drinks and sweetened tea or coffee concoctions. The first set of interviews occurred at least eight months before the tax went into effect; the second set was completed five months after it was implemented. Nearly 3,000 people answered the questions in either English or Spanish,” the LA Times said.
The study also found only 2 percent of those interviewed in Berkeley said they had left the city to buy drinks as a way to avoid the tax, something the beverage industry has warned will happen in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Philadelphia’s 1.5-cent-per-ounce tax is similar to Berkeley’s in that both are levied on distributors, not at the point of sale. “But the tax differs from Berkeley’s – and its impact might differ, too – because it hits a broader base of products, essentially anything with added sugar or artificial sweetener. That means Philadelphians looking to avoid the tax will have fewer options, something Jennifer Falbe, one of the study’s authors, said could result in an even more dramatic increase in water consumption here,” the Inquirer said.