Options Analysis: Reducing the rate of smoking among young people (fictitious example)

1. Options Analysis: Reducing the rate of smoking among young people (fictitious example) The health ministry of Healthy and Happy Land would like to reduce the number of young people who start smoking. The ministry discusses several options. One option is to appeal to self-regulation and, as a deterrent, place gruesome pictures on cigarette packages, for instance, of diseased lungs. A second option is to provide an economic incentive and raise the price of tobacco. A third option is to make access to tobacco more difficult by prohibiting cigarette vending machines. The ministry uses various sources of data to compare options, for example historical figures from other countries and surveying a selected sample of young people on the effect of measures and studies on the harmful effects of smoking. The underlying data thus consists of qualitative and quantitative information that the ministry uses in a multi-criteria analysis, and the three options in comparison to the current situation (status quo) using a scale of "++" to "--" for evaluating which option will mostly likely reduce the number of young people who start smoking. This comparison shows that a price increase would have the greatest effect.

2. Options Analysis: Reducing the rate of smoking among young people (fictitious example)