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Nudging' health behavioural change: behavioral economics, Tobacco control and innovative finance for Cancer control

Tobacco smoking is the leading cause of preventable death globally. Despite the existing traditional economic approaches like taxation, recent progress in tobacco control has plateaued compared to control efforts in nutrition, sexual reproductive health and alcohol. This discrepancy can be attribute...

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Main Author: Chilwesa, Mambwe
Other Authors: Nilsson, Warren
Format: Thesis
Language:English
English
Published: Graduate School of Business (GSB) 2025
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access_status_str Open Access
author Chilwesa, Mambwe
author2 Nilsson, Warren
author_browse Chilwesa, Mambwe
Nilsson, Warren
author_facet Nilsson, Warren
Chilwesa, Mambwe
author_sort Chilwesa, Mambwe
collection Thesis
description Tobacco smoking is the leading cause of preventable death globally. Despite the existing traditional economic approaches like taxation, recent progress in tobacco control has plateaued compared to control efforts in nutrition, sexual reproductive health and alcohol. This discrepancy can be attributed to better nudging efforts in these areas compared to tobacco control. This study aimed to determine the knowledge of tobacco-related health and social problems, applications of behavioural economics in tobacco control amongst tobacco-control stakeholders, and to identify innovative ways of funding for treatment of tobacco-related cancers. This exploratory, cross-sectional, qualitative study was conducted between January 2020 and December 2022. The data collection involved semi-structured interviews and a focus group meeting. Data analysis was done using the thematic semantic analysis approach, with the initial step including verbatim transcription of the interviews followed by the listing of emerging ideas, code generation and sorting of themes. The results demonstrated participants' extensive knowledge of tobacco-related health and social problems and their minimal understanding of behavioural economics including nudging in this space. A few behavioural economics principles were identified which included incentives, bounded rationality, goal gradient theory, gamification, hyperbolic discounting, and herd mentality. Findings also revealed innovative ways to fund the control of tobacco-related cancer, which included public-private partnerships, taxation and occupational health compensations. Despite substantial efforts in the field of tobacco control, existing measures have not yielded the desired results in curbing tobacco smoking and behavioural economics may be an effective tool to bridge the gap. This study highlights the lack of knowledge on nudging as an effective tool for tobacco control. It is imperative to allocate increased funding to further explore the role of nudging in tobacco control and generate additional data in this area.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language English
eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:32:29.432Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2025
publishDateRange 2025
publishDateSort 2025
publisher Graduate School of Business (GSB)
publisherStr Graduate School of Business (GSB)
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spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/42147 Nudging' health behavioural change: behavioral economics, Tobacco control and innovative finance for Cancer control Chilwesa, Mambwe Nilsson, Warren Chelwa, Grieve Tobacco control behavioural economics nudging tobacco-related cancers smoking prevention qualitative study thematic analysis public-private partnerships taxation hyperbolic discounting incentives Tobacco smoking is the leading cause of preventable death globally. Despite the existing traditional economic approaches like taxation, recent progress in tobacco control has plateaued compared to control efforts in nutrition, sexual reproductive health and alcohol. This discrepancy can be attributed to better nudging efforts in these areas compared to tobacco control. This study aimed to determine the knowledge of tobacco-related health and social problems, applications of behavioural economics in tobacco control amongst tobacco-control stakeholders, and to identify innovative ways of funding for treatment of tobacco-related cancers. This exploratory, cross-sectional, qualitative study was conducted between January 2020 and December 2022. The data collection involved semi-structured interviews and a focus group meeting. Data analysis was done using the thematic semantic analysis approach, with the initial step including verbatim transcription of the interviews followed by the listing of emerging ideas, code generation and sorting of themes. The results demonstrated participants' extensive knowledge of tobacco-related health and social problems and their minimal understanding of behavioural economics including nudging in this space. A few behavioural economics principles were identified which included incentives, bounded rationality, goal gradient theory, gamification, hyperbolic discounting, and herd mentality. Findings also revealed innovative ways to fund the control of tobacco-related cancer, which included public-private partnerships, taxation and occupational health compensations. Despite substantial efforts in the field of tobacco control, existing measures have not yielded the desired results in curbing tobacco smoking and behavioural economics may be an effective tool to bridge the gap. This study highlights the lack of knowledge on nudging as an effective tool for tobacco control. It is imperative to allocate increased funding to further explore the role of nudging in tobacco control and generate additional data in this area. 2025-11-07T10:41:23Z 2025-11-07T10:41:23Z 2025 2025-11-07T10:38:02Z Thesis / Dissertation Masters MPhil http://hdl.handle.net/11427/42147 en eng application/pdf Graduate School of Business (GSB) Faculty of Commerce University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Tobacco control
behavioural economics
nudging
tobacco-related cancers
smoking prevention
qualitative study
thematic analysis
public-private partnerships
taxation
hyperbolic discounting
incentives
Chilwesa, Mambwe
Nudging' health behavioural change: behavioral economics, Tobacco control and innovative finance for Cancer control
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Nudging' health behavioural change: behavioral economics, Tobacco control and innovative finance for Cancer control
title_full Nudging' health behavioural change: behavioral economics, Tobacco control and innovative finance for Cancer control
title_fullStr Nudging' health behavioural change: behavioral economics, Tobacco control and innovative finance for Cancer control
title_full_unstemmed Nudging' health behavioural change: behavioral economics, Tobacco control and innovative finance for Cancer control
title_short Nudging' health behavioural change: behavioral economics, Tobacco control and innovative finance for Cancer control
title_sort nudging health behavioural change behavioral economics tobacco control and innovative finance for cancer control
topic Tobacco control
behavioural economics
nudging
tobacco-related cancers
smoking prevention
qualitative study
thematic analysis
public-private partnerships
taxation
hyperbolic discounting
incentives
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/42147
work_keys_str_mv AT chilwesamambwe nudginghealthbehaviouralchangebehavioraleconomicstobaccocontrolandinnovativefinanceforcancercontrol