Policy Impact

Model-based evidence to support national tobacco and alcohol policy decision-making.

Evidence-Based Policy Appraisal

The STAPM (Sheffield Tobacco and Alcohol Policy Modelling) platform provides the computational framework for evaluating and appraising public health interventions. By transitioning from the original static Sheffield Alcohol Policy Model framework to a modular, dynamic microsimulation architecture, STAPM enables highly granular projections of policy effects across different jurisdictions and population subgroups.

🥃 Alcohol: MUP Implementation and Uprating

STAPM has served as the primary technical evidence base for the review and uprating of alcohol Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) policy in Scotland and Wales.

🚬 Tobacco: Smokefree Legislation and Pricing Policies

We have extended the STAPM architecture to address tobacco control, shifting the analytical focus from traditional tax escalators to innovative price-control and legislative mechanisms.

The “Smokefree Generation” Policy (Tobacco and Vapes Bill)

A primary goal of the STAPM platform is to provide the methodology and key inputs required for policy modelling by government agencies.

We initially developed our model to project future smoking rates to inform the 2021 Royal College of Physician’s report (Section 2.6). We later collaborated with the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), to support the development of their internal modelling capacity.

To facilitate this, we released our smoking state transition probability estimates and the accompanying R package, smktrans, as open-source software.

  • Contribution to the National Impact Assessment: In 2023, the government team responsible for modelling the Smokefree Generation policy utilised the smktrans logic and transition estimates as the basis for their own policy model. Throughout the legislative process, the STAPM team provided technical support to government analysts by updating the transition probability estimates and advising on the policy impact estimates. This work is formally cited in the official government Impact Assessment for the Bill (p34).

Minimum Tobacco Pricing & Fiscal Policy

📈 Rapid Response: Budget Briefing Notes

The agility of the STAPM platform—specifically the TAX-sim pricing policy model—allows us to provide timely analysis of changes to alcohol and tobacco taxation following UK Budget announcements. These rapid-response reports estimate the potential health and economic implications of new fiscal measures in near-real-time.

🔗 Multi-Level Systems Modelling: Smoking Cessation

In collaboration with a team at University College London, we are pioneering a hybrid modelling approach that targets multiple levels of the smoking cessation system.

  • The Integration: This project uses the STAPM microsimulation as a high-fidelity ‘back-end’ to project health outcomes, while using a novel Agent-Based Model (ABM) as the ‘front-end’ to simulate how individual smokers interact with cessation services and social networks.
  • Why it matters: This allows us to move beyond “average” policy effects to understand how social contagion and behavioural complexity drive—or hinder—policies such as stop smoking media campaigns, increased investment in community stop smoking services, and the Smokefree Generation.

🤝 Knowledge Exchange & Capacity Building

A key differentiator of the STAPM approach is that we do not just aim to provide reports; we aim to provide know-how and tools.

By making our intermediate data products, such as smoking state transition probabilities, available via open-source repositories, we facilitate government agencies in building and owning their own internal models.

  • Public Health Wales Collaboration: We are currently working with Public Health Wales to support their tobacco policy and data science teams. We are helping them understand the STAPM methodologies to support the development of their internal workflows, ensuring sustainable, locally-owned modelling capacity.

🚀 Future Workstreams

The STAPM framework is being systematically applied to emerging public health priorities:

1. Vaping and E-Cigarette Simulation

Through the SPIRE Project, we started to develop a multi-state transition model to simulate the long-term effects of vaping policy, balancing adult cessation benefits against the risks of youth uptake.

2. Treatment Service Modelling

We are extending STAPM to model the local-level impact of tobacco and alcohol treatment services, helping local authorities and the NHS quantify the relationship between service capacity and population health outcomes.

3. Commercial Determinants of Health

As a core partner in the Local Health and Global Profits (PHI-UK) consortium, we are developing the capability to model the impacts of local-level policies, such as advertising restrictions and retail density controls.