Rice wine price reduction and alcohol-related hospitalizations in Taiwan

Rice wine is a popular beverage in Chinese diet culture for both drinking and cooking. After joining the World Trade Organization, Taiwan government raised the domestic beverage tax since 2001, including rice wine. Under the pressure of public request, Taiwan government reduced the price of rice wine to 50 NTD in 2009 and to 25 NTD in 2010. This time-series study intends to evaluate the health impact of the price cut in Taiwan.

This study employed analyses on monthly aggregated hospitalization for alcohol-related diseases by using the nationally representative sample of a million beneficiaries in the National Health Insurance Research database during 2005 and 2011. We examined the policy effects in 2009 and 2010 by the autoregressive moving average intervention model, and applying the impulse-response functions to detect the effects. Further analysis was conducted for subgroups such as gender, age groups and living areas.

After the first price reduction in 2009, the mean rates increased 12.36%. The rate increased after first price reduction among men, but not women. The effect was larger among adults living in rural area, and no long-term effect for urban adults.The largest impact was observed among aged 45-64 subgroup. It is noteworthy that those population had higher mean level before policy intervention. This research suggest that the price reduction of Taiwan rice wine in 2009 led to increased alcohol-related hospitalizations. The government and public health researchers should pay more attention to the alcohol-related health problems of rice wine, no matter it is for food ingredient or drinking.