Mississippi Tobacco Data

Science Guiding Advocacy

2012-03-01T10:34:00.002-06:00

As social scientists, we are trained to use objective scientific methods to collect and analyze data on social issues. We produce academic papers, give professional talks, and even occasionally produce reports for policy makers (with the expectation that others will actively apply our findings to policy issues, but rarely do we actually get in front of a social issue and become active advocates). I’ve spent the past decade conducting research on tobacco, and my way of thinking about the role of a social scientist has shifted drastically. Stan Glantz, the eminent cardiologist and one of the people at the epicenter of the our Nation's first smoke free movement in California, once advised me, “So long as the science guides the advocacy rather than the reverse, it’s perfectly acceptable for a scientist to advocate for health policies.”

Given that our tobacco research is often applied to advocate for national, state, and local tobacco control policies, we take several steps to ensure our scientific credibility. First, the people administering our surveys do not have any stake in the outcome of the surveys. To illustrate, the SSRC's Survey Research Laboratory (SRL) administers many of our surveys, and their compensation depends on the quality of their survey administration, not the outcome of the survey. Schoolteachers administer our other surveys, and, like the SRL administrators, these individuals do not have any stake in the survey findings. Second, we release all of our study findings on our website, not just the findings that support particular tobacco control policies. Third, we provide full disclosure of our research methods, as well as the source of funding for our research. By doing so, we provide people with information needed to accurately assess the merit of our research and identify any possible conflicts of interest. These measures protect our scientific integrity and ensure that we continue to let the science guide the advocacy rather than the reverse.

Cigarette Consumption and Cigarette Tax Revenue in Mississippi and our Neighboring States

2012-02-08T09:52:00.000-06:00

Most states have increased their cigarette tax in past few years. In the space below, we demonstrate the trends for cigarette consumption and cigarette tax revenue for Mississippi and our border states. As you can see from these charts, Arkansas is the only state that has a higher cigarette tax than Mississippi. Note that per capita cigarette consumption is decreasing in our border states, as well as in Mississippi. The decrease in our neighboring states suggest that cross-border smuggling, at a meaning level, from states with lower taxes is not occurring.

Butts Blog Post

2012-02-03T11:17:00.000-06:00

Tobacco Control dedicated a recent issue on the environmental impact of cigarettes butts. Destin Cretton has released a short film on this toxic litter. And we have a fact sheet on the number of butts produced in Mississippi each year.

Detailed Methods for Economic Impacts of Smoke-Free Ordinances

2012-01-31T11:06:00.003-06:00

In late 2011, we released Economic Effects of Smoke-Free Ordinances in Mississippi, in this post we provide detailed methods and release the supporting spread sheets for each community.

Detailed Methods

Monthly sales tax collections data for municipalities are available at the local level from the Department of Revenue of the State of Mississippi. These monthly reports provide the amount of sales tax collected and the amount of Tourism and Economic Development (TED) taxes collected
Data were adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index (CPI) using September 2011 as the base month (formula for adjusting for inflation).
We selected smoke-free communities with at least 12 months of post-ban data*.

Aberdeen

We contrasted percent change in revenue in each of these smoke-free communities to the aggregated percent change in the comparison communities in Mississippi that did not have smoke-free ordinances during the study period.
Aggregated pre- and post-ordinance TED tax revenue data (final results are in the worksheet named Summary) for control communities were extracted for the same period as each of the 17 smoke-free communities, and provide a comparison for the same time period.

Given that Mississippi communities adopted their smoke-free ordinance at different times, these time periods differ for the 17 smoke-free communities
Aggregated data from the 16 communities without smoke-free ordinances provide economic controls**

* Hernando experienced atypical revenue in October 2007 (post-ordinance study period) that was approximately 10 times as high as the monthly average for the study period. In order to avoid skewing the results in favor of the post-ordinance period, we replaced the TED tax revenue in Hernando for October 2007 with the revenue amount from November 2007.

** Data from two of the control communities were omitted due to changes in the TED tax structure during the study period. Ocean Springs increased the tax and Natchez added an occupancy TED tax during the study period.

Results from the Mississippi Adult Tobacco Survey

2012-01-26T13:31:00.000-06:00

The CDC administered the MS ATS to Mississippi adults. The following charts summarize key findings from this survey. More to come over the following days.

Methods for the Mississippi Adult Tobacco Survey

2012-01-26T13:27:00.000-06:00

From the CDC:

NATS Methodology at a Glance

The NATS was designed as a stratified, national, landline and cell phone survey of non-institutionalized adults 18 years of age and older. It was designed to yield data representative and comparable at both national and State levels.

Each state is divided into at least three strata: a listed landline stratum, a not-listed landline stratum, and a cell phone stratum. The target number of landline completes per state was 1863. Target number of cell phone completes per state varied in proportion to each state’s population.

NATS fielding occurred between October 20, 2009 and February 28, 2010.

Mississippi:

Landline completes: 1,761

Cell completes: 42

Total completes: 1,803

Almost three-quarters of Mississippi Adults Favor a Statewide Smoke-free Law

2012-01-26T09:58:00.000-06:00

Our latest fact sheet highlights results from the 2011 Mississippi Social Climate Survey of Tobacco Control. Almost three-quarters of Mississippi adults favor a state law prohibiting smoking in indoor public places, while only 16.1% oppose such a law.

On another note, 70,000,000,000 cigarette butts were produced in Mississippi within the past 12 years. The good news, however, is that the number of butts produced dropped by over a billion form 2009 to 2010.

49 Mississippi Communities Now Have Comprehensive Smoke Free Ordinances

2012-01-06T09:59:00.001-06:00

More than 22% of Mississippians live in a town that had passed a 100% smoke free ordinance, read our latest fact sheet to learn more. For more information on smoke free ordinances in Mississippi, visit our interactive map and our warehouse of Mississippi ordinances.

Also, we have released a 2 page version of the The Starkville & Hattiesburg Heart Attack Studies

Economic Effects of Smoke-Free Ordinances in Mississippi Communities: An Examination of Tourism And Economic Development Tax Revenues

2011-11-17T10:01:00.000-06:00

There are several objective methods for assessing potential impacts of smoke-free laws on the hospitality industry. The most common approach is to examine trends in sales tax revenue from the hospitality sector before and after the smoke-free laws ordinances are enacted. In Mississippi, communities may choose to collect an optional Tourism and Economic Development (TED) tax that can be placed on restaurants and/or hotels/motels. This tax currently ranges from 1% to 4% of gross revenue. Most communities that collect a TED tax impose this tax on both restaurants and hotels/motels. Some communities collect the same percentage of tax from each sector, while others tax each sector at a different rate. Also, some communities only impose this tax on one sector of the local hospitality industry. Among the communities that collect this optional TED tax during the study period, 17 have implemented a comprehensive smoke-free ordinance and 16 have not implemented a smoke-free ordinance (See Table 1).

This study examines inflation-adjusted pre- and post-ordinance TED tax revenue data for each of the 17 communities with comprehensive smoke-free ordinances (and at least 12 months of post-ordinance data), and compares these revenue data to the revenue data from Mississippi communities without smoke-free ordinances. For each of the 17 communities with smoke-free ordinances, revenue data from these comparison communities were aggregated across the same two 12-months periods. The percent change in TED tax revenue for the smoke-free community was then compared to the aggregated percent change across the comparison communities. Finally, an average percent change in revenue was calculated for the 17 smoke-free communities and compared to the average percent change in the comparison communities.

Summary

In order to provide a comparison for each of the 17 communities with comprehensive smoke-free ordinances, we aggregated revenue data from the communities with the TED tax but without smoke-free ordinances and calculated a comparison for each smoke-free community. Table 2 provides an average percent change in revenue in the communities without ordinances during the same time period we examined in the communities with smoke-free ordinances.

Detailed Methods

Monthly sales tax collections data for municipalities are available at the local level from the Department of Revenue of the State of Mississippi. These monthly reports provide the amount of sales tax collected and the amount of Tourism and Economic Development (TED) taxes collected - http://www.dor.ms.gov/info/stats/transfer.html
Data were adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index (CPI) using September 2011 as the base month.
We selected smoke-free communities with at least 12 months of post-ban data*.
We contrasted percent change in revenue in each of these smoke-free communities to the aggregated percent change in the comparison communities in Mississippi that did not have smoke-free ordinances.
Aggregated pre- and post-ordinance TED tax revenue data for control communities were extracted for the same period as each of the 18 smoke-free communities, and provide a comparison for the same time period.

Given that Mississippi communities adopted their smoke-free ordinance at different times, these time periods differ for the 18 smoke-free communities
Aggregated data from the 16 communities without smoke-free ordinances provide economic controls**

Results

Table 2 presents the the inflation-adjusted pre- and post- ban data for the Mississippi communities that have comprehensive smoke-free ordinances, collect a TED tax, and have at least 12 months of post-ban data. The percentage change in revenue for these towns ranges from -17% to 95%. As other researchers have noted***, this wide range reflects the volatile nature of the restaurant and hospitality industries, due to seasonality and turnover in businesses. Also, the largest changes occurred in the smaller communities.

For the communities with smoke-free ordinances as a whole, inflation-adjusted TED tax revenue were 10.3% greater in the 12 months following the enactment of a smoke-free ordinance. Conversely, there was no meaningful change in TED tax revenue in the aggregated control communities (-.1%). Thus there is no evidence that smoke-free ordinances harmed from the TED tax.

*** Pope & Bartosch (1997)

Latest Releases

2011-09-26T13:22:00.000-05:00

We have just posted our latest report from the 2010 Youth Tobacco Survey (the 2011 survey is currently field). The latest reports from the 2011 University Surveys are also available under Feature Publications. Highlighted Result: 75.8% of UMiss students, 72.6% of USM sudents, and 70.4% of MSU students believe that smoking should NOT be allowed anywhere on campus.