Effective policies to promote sugar reduction in soft drinks: lessons from a comparison of six European countries.

"data availability the statistical code for the analyses are available from https://github com/oallais/ssb-tax-sugar-reduction ."

"data availability the statistical code for the analyses are available from https://github com/oallais/ssb-tax-sugar-reduction ."

"Conflicts of interest : None declared."

"Funding This study has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 774548, throught the STOP project. Conflicts of interest: None declared. Key pointsAlthough there is conclusive evidence that SSB taxes are associated with higher prices of taxed beverages and lower sales, there is limited evidence on their effectiveness in incentivizing soft drink manufacturers to cut sugar.Sugar reductions in SSBs have been greater in countries that have adopted specific policies to encourage them.The UK SDIL was the most successful policy in reducing the sugar content of new SSBs, compared with the two French SSB taxes and the Dutch public health policy based on voluntary reformulation.A sugar-based tax design encourages more sugar reduction than a volume-based tax design.The level of the tax rate and the amount of the tax reduction that could be achieved by switching to the next lower levy tier in a tiered sugar-based tax design may be critical to incentivize manufacturers to reformulate."