Tobacco Control Interventions

SHINE Director Professor Tony Blakely has over 20 years of experience in tobacco control research, including ten years simulating the impact of tobacco control interventions on health gains and costs (see selected publications listed at bottom of this page).

The tobacco control model Blakely built in NZ (2010-19) whilst Director of the BODE3 program has been judged the best of 25 similar models internationally. This model has now been evolved further to be the SHINE-Tobacco model, coded in Python for greater functionality.

In 2021, SHINE was commissioned by the New Zealand Government to simulate the health gains and costs of three proposed strategies: denicotinisation of all retailed tobacco; 95% reduction in retail outlets; and a tobacco-free generation. Our analyses underpinned the Government’s Action Plan that is – arguably – the world’s most audacious plan to rid a country of tobacco-related harm.  A pre-print of the health and health inequality impacts of these policies is here. A publication on the health expenditure, income and net impacts on Government revenue and savings is in progress.

Other SHINE-Tobacco simulation projects currently in progress include:

  • Quantifying the health gains by disease grouping for the NZ strategy
  • Health and cost impacts of tobacco endgame strategies applied in Australia, including impacts on socioeconomic and Indigenous inequalities in health.

Selected examples of tobacco control simulation studies that SHINE is building on: