Dieteren, C.M., Bonfrer, I., Brouwer, W.B.F. and van Exel, J. (2023). Public preferences for policies promoting a healthy diet: a discrete choice experiment The European Journal Of Health Economics, 24(9):1429--1440.

Background: Worldwide obesity rates have nearly tripled over the past five decades. So far, policies to promote a healthier diet have been less intrusive than those to reduce tobacco and alcohol consumption. Not much is known about public support for policies that aim to promote a healthy diet. In this study, a discrete choice experiment (DCE) was used to elicit stated preferences for policies varying in intrusiveness among a representative sample of the public of The Netherlands. Methods: The choice tasks presented respondents a hypothetical scenario of two policy packages, each comprising a mix of seven potential policies that differed in level of intrusiveness. We estimated mixed logit models (MXL) to estimate respondents{\textquoteright} preferences for these policies and performed latent class analyses to identify heterogeneity in preferences. Results: The MXL model showed that positive financial incentives like subsidies for vegetables and fruit yielded most utility. A tax of 50% on sugary drinks was associated with disutility while a tax of 20% was associated with positive utility compared to no tax at all. We identified three subgroups with distinct preferences for the seven policies to promote a healthy diet, which were characterized as being “against”, “mixed” and “pro” policies to promote a healthy diet. Conclusion: Preferences for policies promoting a healthy diet vary considerably in the Dutch population, particularly in relation to more intrusive policies. This makes selection and implementation of a policy package that has wide public support challenging.