Tobacco companies do not appear to be increasing the RRPs of budget brands in line with tobacco excise tax increases. The increasing price differential between budget brands, and mainstream and premium brands may undermine cessation and impede realisation of New Zealand's Smokefree 2025 goal.

Abstract:We conduct a field experiment to analyse whether a representative sample of the population has a preference for giving money to an international development charity or to a charity helping families in need in the home country. The majority of participants reveal a preference for giving to the local charity, rather than the international development charity.Participants were given the option of commenting on why they chose the charity they did, and we conduct a qualitative analysis of these responses. We also analyse quantitatively whether participants' individual characteristics are correlated with the choice of charity.

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Introduction and Aims. Alcohol use impacts workplace productivity in terms of absence and reduced performance by employees. This study's aims were to estimate the cost of lost productivity associated with alcohol use in New Zealand and to describe and quantify its impact on employers. Design and Methods. An online survey was completed by 800 New Zealand employees and 227 employers across a range of industries. The costs of lost productivity directly attributable to alcohol use were estimated using days off work (absenteeism), lost hours of productive time while at work (presenteeism) and hours spent by employers dealing with alcohol-related issues. Ordinal logistic regression was used to explore the association between employee characteristics and reduced workplace productivity associated with alcohol consumption. Results. The estimated annual average cost of lost productivity per employee was NZ$1097.71 (NZ$209.62 absenteeism, NZ$888.09 presenteeism) and NZ$134.62 per employer. At a population level this equates to approximately NZ$1.65 billion per year. The significant predictors of reduced workplace performance were being younger (less than 25 years), male, having a stressful job and drinking more than the recommended standard number of drinks per session. Discussion and Conclusions. Considering absenteeism costs alone will substantially underestimate the total productivity loss associated with alcohol use. Designing and effectively targeting a set of multifaceted policies to engineer change at both the workplace and societal levels will assist in reducing the costs of lost productivity. [Sullivan T, Edgar F, McAndrew I. The hidden costs of employee drinking: A quantitative analysis. Drug Alcohol Rev 2019;38:543-553]