Two new reports released by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) deliver a stark warning for the Americas: current health taxes on alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are insufficient to drive meaningful reductions in consumption, even as the region grapples with some of the highest global intake rates of these products and a growing burden of preventable noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).
Titled *Taxes on alcoholic beverages in the Americas* and *Taxes on sweetened beverages in the Americas*, the analyses find that average tax levels across the region consistently fall below global benchmarks, undermining what public health experts widely recognize as one of the most cost-effective interventions to improve population health. When broken down by product category, the median total tax burden on beer in the Americas hits just 25.5%, compared to a global median of 29.4%. For spirits, the regional average tax rate lands at 31.5%, well under the global median of 38.7%. For SSBs, the median tax burden equals only 17.1% of a product’s final retail price—slightly below the global median of 17.8%—with one-third of all regional nations imposing no tax whatsoever on sugary drinks.
PAHO’s data underscores the urgent gap between policy and public health need: the Americas, particularly Latin America and the Caribbean, already lead the world in per capita consumption of both alcohol and SSBs. The average adult in the region consumes 7.8 servings of sugary beverages per week, nearly three times the global average of 2.7 servings.
Elevated consumption of these products is directly tied to a cascade of severe negative health outcomes that strain regional health systems. Higher intake is linked to rising rates of overweight and obesity, which currently affect 67.5% of adults in the region, as well as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, multiple forms of cancer, liver disease, and a range of other NCDs. For alcohol, harmful use is additionally connected to increased rates of preventable injuries and violence.
Well-designed health taxes serve a dual public policy purpose: they discourage consumption of products proven to harm health, while generating stable public revenue that governments can allocate to underfunded health and social priorities. Targeted taxation also delivers long-term preventive benefits, such as delaying the onset of alcohol use among adolescents, cutting rates of dangerous heavy drinking, and reducing overall SSB intake that drives obesity and chronic illness.
Despite these proven benefits, the reports outline critical structural flaws holding back policy effectiveness across most of the region. Many nations maintain artificially low tax rates, limit the scope of taxed products, or fail to update tax levels regularly to account for inflation—all of which erode the long-term impact of these measures. A key gap in coverage is the exclusion of less obvious sugary products, including sugar-sweetened dairy drinks and processed fruit juices, which pushes consumers to shift their purchases to these untaxed alternatives and blunts the public health impact of existing tax policies.
That said, the reports do highlight small but meaningful progress from a handful of regional nations in recent years. Barbados and Colombia have rolled out new targeted taxes on unhealthy products, while Dominica has raised tax rates across tobacco, alcohol, and sugary beverages.
“In many countries of the Americas, existing taxes have not been designed in line with international best practices and remain too low to meaningfully influence consumption patterns, reduce exposure to health risks, or generate the level of health and fiscal gains that effective health taxes can deliver,” said Dr. Anselm Hennis, Director of PAHO’s Department of Noncommunicable Diseases.
To unlock both maximum health improvements and fiscal benefits, PAHO is calling on regional governments to strengthen their health tax frameworks through four key reforms: implementing intentional, well-structured tax design, setting tax rates at levels sufficient to change consumer behavior, expanding coverage to include all sugar-added products that pose health risks, and building in automatic regular adjustments to account for inflation. The organization also emphasizes the need for consistent policy enforcement, ongoing outcome monitoring, and evidence-based iterative reform to ensure taxes deliver on their core goal of reducing harmful consumption and improving population health.
“PAHO is committed to providing technical support to Member States to strengthen the implementation of health taxes, an evidence-based measure that contributes to reducing risk factors and protecting population health,” Dr. Hennis concluded.
The reports were presented in May during a public webinar hosted by PAHO in partnership with Johns Hopkins University, and they contribute to broader regional and global efforts to track how fiscal policy can be aligned to meet public health targets.
