A new study appears to confirm what officials in Berkeley were hoping for when they became the first city in the nation to approve a tax on sugary beverages. According to the latest research from UC Berkeley, soda consumption is down 21 percent in the city, with the strongest gains in poor and minority communities.
To be fair, soda consumption is down all over the place. But not nearly as much. In comparable cities like San Francisco which rejected such a tax, there was a drop of just 4 percent.
The study was published in the American Journal of Public Health. The researchers first surveyed residents in 2014 and then returned to the same neighborhoods a year later once the tax was in effect. In all, 2,600 people were interviewed.
Representatives of the American Beverage Association are criticizing the latest research, calling the validity of such “man on the street” surveys into question. The latest study is also peculiar in light of a 2015 Cornell and the University of Iowa analysis, which found that very little of the tax had actually been passed on to consumers. It is possible, however, that most of the changes in respondents’ behavior was due to increased awareness rather than economic considerations.
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