The sale of budget cigarettes across Europe has contributed significantly to infant mortality, researchers warned today.
The British researchers blamed budget cigarettes for some 3,195 infant deaths over a ten-year period.
The research involved an analysis of 54 million births across 23 European countries over a ten-year period.
They sought to identify the impact of cigarette prices on infant mortality, including the impact of the price difference between budget cigarettes and average prices.
In some countries, budget packs were sold for 26% less than average prices while in others the difference was 12.8%, according to the report in JAMA Pediatrics.
During the ten years of the study infant mortality declined from 4.4 deaths per 1,000 births to 3.5.
The researchers found that a one Euro increase in average cigarette prices was linked to a reduction of 0.23 deaths per 1,000 live births.
Researcher Dr Filippos Filippidis, from Imperial College, London, UK, said: "Thanks to tax and price control measures, cigarettes in EU countries are more expensive than ever before.
“However, the tobacco industry is good at finding loopholes to ensure that budget cigarettes remain available. In this study, we found that the availability of budget cigarettes is associated with more infant deaths."
Association of Cigarette Price Differentials With Infant Mortality in 23 European Union Countries. JAMA Pediatrics 19 September 2017 [abstract]
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