Co-authored with Rosa Carolina Sandoval (PAHO) and Maristela G. Monteiro (PAHO).
Conference presentations: Alcohol Policy 19 (2022)
Top 10% most-viewed articles published in 2023 in Addiction.
Co-authored with Rosa Carolina Sandoval (PAHO), Sehr Malik (PAHO), Itziar Belausteguigoitia (WHO), and Gilberto Morales-Zamora (PAHO).
Co-authored with Rosa Carolina Sandoval (PAHO), Adriana Bacelar Gomes (PAHO), Natalia Parra (Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids), and Francisco Armada (PAHO).
Co-authored with Miriam Alvarado (University of Cambridge), Rosa Carolina Sandoval (PAHO), Fabio da Silva Gomes (PAHO), and Guillermo Paraje (Universidad Adolfo Ibanez).
Seminar presentations: PAHO (2022, link)
Co-authored with Brian Hutchinson (RTI International), Farisha Brispat (Ministry of Health, Suriname), Lorena Viviana Calderon Pinzon (Ministry of Health, Colombia), Alejandra Sarmiento (FOSALUD, El Salvador), Esteban Solis (Ministry of Health, Costa Rica), Rachel Nugent (RTI International), Nathan Mann (RTI International), Garrison Spencer (RTI International), Carrie Ngongo (RTI International), Andrew Black (WHO FCTC Secretariat), Maria Carmen Audera-Lopez (WHO FCTC Secretariat), Tih Armstrong Ntiabang (WHO FCTC Secretariat), Dudley Tarlton (UNDP), Juana Cooke (UNDP), Roy Small (UNDP), and Rosa Carolina Sandoval (PAHO).
Co-authored with Rosa Carolina Sandoval (PAHO), Itziar Belausteguigoitia (University of Lancaster), Miriam Alvarado (University of Cambridge), Luis Galicia (Ministry of Health, Uruguay), Fabio da Silva Gomes (PAHO), Guillermo Paraje (Universidad Adolfo Ibanez).
Co-authored with Franco Sassi (Imperial College London)
This chapter is included in the United Nations 'Handbook on health taxes for developing countries' as part of the work programme of the Subcommittee on Health Taxes commissioned during the twenty-fourth Session of the United Nations' Committee of Experts on International Tax Matters (E/C.18/2022/CRP.4). The final version of the Handbook was approved during the thirtieth Session of the Committee (March 2025). The approved version of the handbook can be found here: https://financing.desa.un.org/sites/default/files/2025-03/CRP.16%20health%20taxes%20handbook%2018march.pdf
Co-authored with Anne-Marie Thow (University of Sidney), Kate Mandeville (World Bank), and Libby Hattersley (World Bank)
This chapter is included in the United Nations 'Handbook on health taxes for developing countries' as part of the work programme of the Subcommittee on Health Taxes commissioned during the twenty-fourth Session of the United Nations' Committee of Experts on International Tax Matters (E/C.18/2022/CRP.4). The final version of the Handbook was approved during the thirtieth Session of the Committee (March 2025). The approved version of the handbook can be found here: https://financing.desa.un.org/sites/default/files/2025-03/CRP.16%20health%20taxes%20handbook%2018march.pdf
Co-authored with Rosa Carolina Sandoval (PAHO), Anne-Marie Perucic (WHO), Itziar Belausteguigoitia (WHO), Miriam Alvarado (University of Cambridge), Luis Galicia (Ministry of Health, Uruguay), and Guillermo Paraje (Universidad Adolfo Ibanez)
Abstract: We draw from the well-established global monitoring of tobacco taxes by the World Health Organization and provide a proposed similar approach to develop new – or adapt existing – monitoring tools for taxes on alcoholic beverages and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs). Since 2008, the periodical and global monitoring of tobacco tax levels, prices, affordability and additional tax structure and tax administration information has enabled standardised comparisons across countries and over time, informed policymaking and institutional opportunities or barriers to apply tobacco taxes, led to defining best practices in the design of such taxes, and provided powerful tools for advocacy, especially with ministries of finance to promote fiscal and health policy coherence. Monitoring taxes on alcoholic beverages and SSBs in a similar way would require adjusting the methodology used to monitor taxes on tobacco products to the unique characteristics of these beverages – namely the fact that these products are more diverse than tobacco products in terms of product types consumed, and in volume sizes and content. In addition to collecting data on the tax structure, tax rates, tax bases and nominal retail prices on several different beverage types, monitoring taxes on alcoholic beverages and SSBs would require information on beverage volume sizes and sugar content and alcohol concentration. A balance would need to be reached between characterising the diversity of global or regional consumption patterns, ensuring the standardisation and precision of the indicators, and limiting the data requirements from national authorities. While institutional considerations are to be considered in expanding the global routine monitoring systems for taxes on alcoholic beverages and SSBs, there are lessons to be learned and potential synergies from the experience monitoring tobacco taxes. The successful monitoring of taxes applied on these three unhealthy products would play a great role in promoting global action and driving progress to reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases.
Pan American Health Organization. Alcohol tax indicators in the Region of the Americas (PAHO, 2024, link)
World Health Organization. Global report on the use of alcohol taxes, 2023 (WHO, 2023, link)
World Health Organization. Global report on the use of sugar-sweetened beverage taxes, 2023 (WHO, 2023, link)
Pan American Health Organization, Healthy Americas' Coalition, and ICESI University. Fiscal policies and noncommunicable diseases (in Spanish) (PAHO, 2023, link)
Pan American Health Organization. Sugar-sweetened beverage tax indicators in Latin America and the Caribbean (PAHO, 2022, link)
Pan American Health Organization. Prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases and mental health conditions in Peru: The case for investment (in Spanish) (PAHO, 2022, link)
Pan American Health Organization. Calculating standardized tax share and other price and tax policy indicators for alcoholic beverages in Latin America and the Caribbean: Methodological note (PAHO, 2022, link)
Pan American Health Organization. Calculating standardized tax share and other price and tax policy indicators for sugar-sweetened beverages in Latin America and the Caribbean: Methodological note (PAHO, 2022, link)
Pan American Health Organization. Sugar-sweetened beverage taxation in the Region of the Americas (PAHO, 2021, link)
Pan American Health Organization. Care for mental health conditions in Jamaica: The case for investment. Evaluating the return on investment of scaling up treatment for depression, anxiety, and psychosis (PAHO, 2020, link)
UK Department of Health and Social Care & World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe. Sugar and Calorie Reduction Network meeting. Fiscal Leavers. The Costa Rica value-added tax (London, UK, 2025)
Pan American Health Organization. How can we monitor tax policies in alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages? Health tax policies in Latin America and the Caribbean: Are we making progress? (virtual presentation, 2022, link)
European Commission and ICF. Lessons learned from Chile and other Latin American and Caribbean countries on HFSS food and beverage taxes. Mapping of fiscal measures and pricing policies applied to food, non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages (virtual presentation, 2022, link)
Vital Strategies, Pan American Health Organization, and ACT Brazil. Health taxes save lives, reduce health expenditures, and increase revenue. A special focus on alcohol taxes in the Region of the Americas. Fiscal and other regulations of alcohol in Brazil (virtual presentation, 2021, link)
Pan American Health Organization and Tobacconomics. Tobacco taxes in Latin America (in Spanish). Presentation of Tobacconomics' Cigarette Tax Scorecard (virtual presentation, 2021, link)
Congress of Paraguay. Noncommunicable diseases: Scientific evidence for the use of fiscal policies for health (In Spanish) (Asuncion, Paraguay, 2019, link)