Grant: Early Career Investigator Award - Indigenous Circulat./Respiratory Hlth Research

Evidence suggests that pop contributes a lot of sugar to the Canadian diet, which is linked to increasing levels of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Consequently, an increasing number of jurisdictions globally are adopting a pop tax to curb intake, as recommended by the World Health Organization. Canada has not yet adopted the tax, but its merit is being widely debated. In Canada, the burden of obesity and type 2 diabetes is greater among lower socioeconomic groups and Indigenous populations while pop intake is higher within these same groups. These realities underscore the need to understand the perceived impact of a pop tax on intake among low socioeconomic groups and Indigenous populations to improve population health outcomes. However, previous experience with tobacco taxes have demonstrated that taxes are not effective policy levers in reducing smoking rates among low socioeconomic groups, thus suggesting that a similar tax on pop may also be ineffective. Tobacco taxes were also not implemented in most First Nations communities. In this research, we have four objectives: 1) to describe how pop intake has changed in Canada from 2004 to 2015 among Indigenous, low income, rural/urban, and food insecure people; 2) to examine how middle-class Canadians living in Winnipeg perceive a pop tax; 3) to examine how First Nation people living in the Island Lake First Nations (on-reserve) perceive a pop tax, should one ever be implemented; and 4) to examine how Indigenous people living in Winnipeg (off-reserve) perceive a pop tax. What we learn by doing this research will help us understand the pros and cons of implementing a pop tax in Canada. This research will also inform recommendations concerning effective strategies for public health messaging that might accompany such a tax and suggestions for use of tax revenue that are acceptable to populations who may be most burdened by a proposed pop tax.