ORCID Profile
0000-0002-8345-5435
Current Organisation
Australian National University
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Research Topics
In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Top 5 Research Topics
ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)
Public Nutrition Intervention | Public Health and Health Services | Public Policy | Public Health and Health Services not elsewhere classified | Ecological Applications | Ecological Impacts of Climate Change | Nutrition and Dietetics | Nutrition And Dietetics | Epidemiology | Health Policy | Political Theory and Political Philosophy | Political Science not elsewhere classified | Public Health And Health Services Not Elsewhere Classified | Policy and Administration | Marketing Management (incl. Strategy and Customer Relations) |
ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)
Nutrition | Climate Change Adaptation Measures | Public Health (excl. Specific Population Health) not elsewhere classified | Public Services Policy Advice and Analysis | Marketing | Social Structure and Health | International Political Economy (excl. International Trade) | Social Impacts of Climate Change and Variability | Environmental health | Nutrition | Social structure and health | Health Inequalities
Related Links
Publications
Enabling environments? Insights into the policy context for climate change and health adaptation decision-making in Cambodia
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 10-2013
Inequalities in Risks and Outcomes in a Health Transitioning Country
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 07-2013
Abstract: This article reviews inequalities in health risks and outcomes based on a large longitudinal cohort study of distance-learning adult students enrolled at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University ( n = 87,134). The study began in 2005 and the first follow-up was completed in 2009. Risks analyzed for health inequalities were ided into demographic, socioeconomic, geographical, behavioral, and environmental groups. Unequal risks and outcomes identified that would be amenable to policy interventions in transitional Thailand include the following: heat stress—contributing to many adverse outcomes, including occupational injury, psychological distress, and kidney disease urbanization—unhealthy eating, sedentary lifestyles, low social capital, and poor mental health obesity—increasingly common especially with rising income and age among men and injury—big problem for young males and associated with excessive alcohol and dangerous transport. These substantial inequalities require attention from multisectoral policy makers to reduce the gaps and improve health of the Thai population.
Time to Regenerate: Ecosystems and Health Promotion
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 24-10-2006
The Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) pilot analysis: Multitissue gene regulation in humans
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 08-05-2015
Abstract: Human genomes show extensive genetic variation across in iduals, but we have only just started documenting the effects of this variation on the regulation of gene expression. Furthermore, only a few tissues have been examined per genetic variant. In order to examine how genetic expression varies among tissues within in iduals, the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) Consortium collected 1641 postmortem s les covering 54 body sites from 175 in iduals. They identified quantitative genetic traits that affect gene expression and determined which of these exhibit tissue-specific expression patterns. Melé et al. measured how transcription varies among tissues, and Rivas et al. looked at how truncated protein variants affect expression across tissues. Science , this issue p. 648 , p. 660 , p. 666 see also p. 640
Food rescue – an Australian example
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 26-08-2014
Abstract: – Food rescue is used in the emergency food sector internationally to reduce waste and improve food supplies to frontline providers and their clients. The purpose of this paper is to provide a perspective on why and how food rescue occurs in Australia. It also examines food rescue as a potential evolution within the emergency food setting. – A descriptive study of SecondBite, an Australian food rescue organisation, was conducted. Documents were reviewed, 14 weeks of participant observation occurred, and two focus group discussions were held. Framing analysis was used to design the research questions (why rescue food? and how?). The description of the organisation was then examined against critical literature to establish how food rescue conforms to and/or challenges the traditional limitations of emergency food. – Food rescue requires multiple resources within the emergency food space including surplus food, funding and labour. The frames used to justify this work provide an insight into the “problem” of food poverty in Australia and the “solution” of food rescue. The script for “people in need” requiring “fresh food” is well developed by SecondBite, with some tension around food waste reduction as a competing and yet complementary mission. – In light of the growing role of the not for profit sector in a “big society” political order, the rescuing of nutritious food for emergency parcels and meals, may provide some benefits for people already using emergency food. The opportunity for food rescue organisations to play a role in food poverty prevention requires further attention.
Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: food and agriculture
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2009
The irony of a rich country: issues of financial access to and availability of healthy food in the Republic of Ireland
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 12-2006
Understanding Australian policies on public health using social and political science theories: reflections from an Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Workshop
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 19-04-2018
Abstract: There is strong, and growing, evidence documenting health inequities across the world. However, most governments do not prioritize policies to encourage action on the social determinants of health and health equity. Furthermore, despite evidence concerning the benefits of joined-up, intersectoral policy to promote health and health equity, it is rare for such policy approaches to be applied systematically. To examine the usefulness of political and social science theory in understanding the reasons for this disjuncture between evidence and practice, researchers and public servants gathered in Adelaide for an Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) Workshop. This paper draws together the learnings that emerged from the Workshop, including key messages about the usefulness of various theories as well as insights drawn from policy practice. Discussions during the Workshop highlighted that applying multiple theories is particularly helpful in directing attention to, and understanding, the influence of all stages of the policy process from the construction and framing of policy problems, to the implementation of policy and evaluation of outcomes, including those outcomes that may be unintended. In addition, the Workshop emphasized the value of collaborations among public health researchers, political and social scientists and public servants to open up critical discussion about the intersections between theory, research evidence and practice. Such critique is vital to render visible the processes through which particular sources of knowledge may be privileged over others and to examine how political and bureaucratic environments shape policy proposals and implementation action.
Synchronized age-related gene expression changes across multiple tissues in human and the link to complex diseases
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 19-10-2015
DOI: 10.1038/SREP15145
Abstract: Aging is one of the most important biological processes and is a known risk factor for many age-related diseases in human. Studying age-related transcriptomic changes in tissues across the whole body can provide valuable information for a holistic understanding of this fundamental process. In this work, we catalogue age-related gene expression changes in nine tissues from nearly two hundred in iduals collected by the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project. In general, we find the aging gene expression signatures are very tissue specific. However, enrichment for some well-known aging components such as mitochondria biology is observed in many tissues. Different levels of cross-tissue synchronization of age-related gene expression changes are observed and some essential tissues (e.g., heart and lung) show much stronger “co-aging” than other tissues based on a principal component analysis. The aging gene signatures and complex disease genes show a complex overlapping pattern and only in some cases, we see that they are significantly overlapped in the tissues affected by the corresponding diseases. In summary, our analyses provide novel insights to the co-regulation of age-related gene expression in multiple tissues it also presents a tissue-specific view of the link between aging and age-related diseases.
The role of causal ideas in the governance of commercial determinants of health. A qualitative study of tobacco control in the pacific
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2022
DOI: 10.1016/J.SOCSCIMED.2022.115481
Abstract: The consumption of tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed foods and beverages drives the global noncommunicable disease (NCD) crisis in Pacific small island developing states (PSIDS). Addressing the commercial determinants of health (CDoH) requires policy coherence across government sectors however, entrenched neoliberal ideologies that exhort self-regulation of markets and market actors impede such efforts. This paper aims to explore the roles ideas play in governing CDoH, through the analysis of causal ideas in multisectoral tobacco governance in Fiji and Vanuatu. An explorative, qualitative case study design was applied. Data collection relied primarily on in-depth interviews, of which 70 were conducted between 2018 and 2019. Data analysis was guided by a theory-informed analytical framework. Two causal ideas influence multisectoral tobacco governance in Fiji and Vanuatu. According to the idea of in idual responsibility, high smoking prevalence is the consequence of in iduals' unhealthy lifestyle choices it nominates the Ministry of Health as the responsible actor to solve this issue by providing health education. In contrast, the idea of CDoH argues that harmful commodity industries drive the NCD epidemic, and the sectors that regulate these private actors should be kept in closer check to ensure that their policies are aligned with the objectives of public health. In Fiji and Vanuatu, the non-health government agencies are effectively excused from implementing multisectoral tobacco policies because the dominant idea of in idual responsibility relieves them of any responsibility. The wider adoption of the idea of CDoH is needed in PSIDS to tackle the NCD crisis.
Proteome-Wide Analysis of Trypanosoma cruzi Exponential and Stationary Growth Phases Reveals a Subcellular Compartment-Specific Regulation
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 15-08-2018
DOI: 10.3390/GENES9080413
Abstract: Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiologic agent of Chagas disease, cycles through different life stages characterized by defined molecular traits associated with the proliferative or differentiation state. In particular, T. cruzi epimastigotes are the replicative forms that colonize the intestine of the Triatomine insect vector before entering the stationary phase that is crucial for differentiation into metacyclic trypomastigotes, which are the infective forms of mammalian hosts. The transition from proliferative exponential phase to quiescent stationary phase represents an important step that recapitulates the early molecular events of metacyclogenesis, opening new possibilities for understanding this process. In this study, we report a quantitative shotgun proteomic analysis of the T. cruzi epimastigote in the exponential and stationary growth phases. More than 3000 proteins were detected and quantified, highlighting the regulation of proteins involved in different subcellular compartments. Ribosomal proteins were upregulated in the exponential phase, supporting the higher replication rate of this growth phase. Autophagy-related proteins were upregulated in the stationary growth phase, indicating the onset of the metacyclogenesis process. Moreover, this study reports the regulation of N-terminally acetylated proteins during growth phase transitioning, adding a new layer of regulation to this process. Taken together, this study reports a proteome-wide rewiring during T. cruzi transit from the replicative exponential phase to the stationary growth phase, which is the preparatory phase for differentiation.
Food and nutrition security in the Australia-New Zealand region: Impact of climate change
Publisher: S. Karger AG
Date: 2011
DOI: 10.1159/000327823
Health risk factors and the incidence of hypertension: 4-Year prospective findings from a national cohort of 60 569 Thai Open University students
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 06-2013
Roundtable on Urban Living Environment Research (RULER)
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-09-2011
Policy Approaches to Address the Social and Environmental Determinants of Health Inequity in Asia-Pacific
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 15-10-2012
Abstract: Asia Pacific is home to over 60% of the world’s population and the fastest growing economies. Many of the leadership in the Asia Pacific region is becoming increasingly aware that improving the conditions for health would go a long way to sustaining economic prosperity in the region, as well as improving global and local health equity. There is no biological reason why males born in Cambodia can expect to live 23 years less than males born in Japan, or why females born in Tuvalu live 23 years shorter than females in New Zealand or why non-Indigenous Australian males live 12 years longer than Indigenous men. The nature and drivers of health inequities vary greatly among different social, cultural and geo-political contexts and effective solutions must take this into account. This paper utilizes the CSDH global recommendations as a basis for looking at the actions that are taking place to address the structural drivers and conditions of daily living that affect health inequities in the Asia Pacific context. While there are signs of action and hope, substantial challenges remain for health equity in Asia Pacific. The gains that have been made to date are not equally distributed and may be unsustainable as the world encounters new economic, social and environmental challenges. Tackling health inequities is a political imperative that requires leadership, political courage, social action, a sound evidence base and progressive public policy.
The how: a message for the UN high-level meeting on NCDs
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2018
Equity and expertise in the UN Food Systems Summit
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 07-2021
Advancing Indigenous self-determination and health equity
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2022
Commercial determinants of health: future directions
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2023
Redressing the Corporate Cultivation of Consumption: Releasing the Weapons of the Structurally Weak
Publisher: Maad Rayan Publishing Company
Date: 27-10-2020
Abstract: Corporate control of the global food system has resulted in greater global availability of highly processed, packaged and very palatable unhealthy food and beverages. Environmental harm, including climate change and bio ersity loss, occurs along the supply chains associated with trans-national corporations’ (TNCs’) practices and products. In essence, the corporatization of the global food system has created the conditions that cultivate excess consumption, manufacture disease epidemics and harm the environment. TNCs have used their structural power – their positions in material structures and organizational networks – to establish rules, processes and norms that reinforce and extend the paradigm of the neoliberal corporate food system. As a result, policy and regulatory environments, and societal norms are favourable to TNC’s interests, to the detriment of nutrition, health and environmental outcomes. There is hope, however. Power, of which there is many forms, is held not just by the TNCs but by all actors concerned about and connected to the food system. This paper aims to understand these power dynamics, and identify how structurally weak, public-interest actors can release their agency and work to achieve positive structural change. Such an analysis will help understand how the status quo can be disrupted and healthy and sustainable food systems created. The paper draws from the health governance and social movement literature, examining the Doha Declaration on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement and Public Health, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), and the Divestment movement. These cases demonstrate the many ‘weapons of the weak’ that can, against all odds recalibrate structural inequities. There is no one approach to transforming the corporate food system to become a healthy and sustainable food system. It involves coalition building articulation of an ambitious shared vision strategic use of multi-level institutional processes social mobilization among like-minded and unusual bedfellows, and organized c aigns political and policy entrepreneurs, and compelling issue framing.
Association Between Occupational Heat Stress and Kidney Disease Among 37 816 Workers in the Thai Cohort Study (TCS)
Publisher: Japan Epidemiological Association
Date: 2012
Climate change adaptation: Where does global health fit in the agenda?
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 2012
Estimating the Ancestral Recombinations Graph (ARG) as Compatible Networks of SNP Patterns
Publisher: Mary Ann Liebert Inc
Date: 11-2008
Abstract: Traditionally nonrecombinant genome, i.e., mtDNA or Y chromosome, has been used for phylogeography, notably for ease of analysis. The topology of the phylogeny structure in this case is an acyclic graph, which is often a tree, is easy to comprehend and is somewhat easy to infer. However, recombination is an undeniable genetic fact for most part of the genome. Driven by the need for a more complete analysis, we address the problem of estimating the ancestral recombination graph (ARG) from a collection of extant sequences. We exploit the coherence that is observed in the human haplotypes as patterns and present a network model of patterns to reconstruct the ARG. We test our model on simulations that closely mimic the observed haplotypes and observe promising results.
Universal Health Coverage for Health Equity: From Principle to Practice; A Response to the Recent Commentaries
Publisher: Maad Rayan Publishing Company
Date: 14-03-2022
Is health impact assessment useful in the context of trade negotiations? A case study of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 04-2016
Internalisation of International Investment Agreements in Public Policymaking: Developing a Conceptual Framework of Regulatory Chill
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 18-02-2018
Indicators of deprivation, voting patterns, and health status at area level in the Republic of Ireland
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 2002
DOI: 10.1136/JECH.56.1.36
Abstract: To determine what relation, if any, exists between mortality patterns, indicators of deprivation, general lifestyle and social attitudes, as exemplified by general election voting pattern, in the Republic of Ireland. A relation has been demonstrated previously between voting and mortality patterns in the United Kingdom. Cross sectional ecological study using three data sources. Standardised mortality ratios (SMR) were based on mortality rates at county level and 1996 census data from the Central Statistics Office, 1997 general election first preference voting data in all 41 constituencies were aggregated to county level. Selected reported measures of health status, lifestyle and social circumstances are from the first ever National survey on lifestyles, attitudes and nutrition (SLAN). This study comprised adults over 18 years s led by post using the electoral register from 273 representative district electoral isions. Univariate inter-relations were examined at in idual level for the dataset as a whole, adjusting for age and at aggregated level for 26 county borough areas, which included the two largest cities and for 22 county areas, which afforded correlation with voting pattern, using the method of Pearson's correlation coefficient. 1,806,932 votes were cast nationally at the 1997 general election, representing a voter turnout of 65.92 %. There was an overall response rate of 62% to SLAN comprising 6539 adults (47% male). The demographic pattern of survey respondents was consistent with that of the general population over 18 years. At in idual level there was a large number of highly significant inter-relations between indicators of deprivation, various measures of self rated health status and lifestyle factors. Aggregated at 26 county level percentage unemployed (r=0.408, p=0.038), and level of education (r=0.475, p=0.014) related significantly to SMR and inversely to both fruit and vegetable consumption (r= -0.672, p=0.001) and excess alcohol consumption among men (r= -595, p=0.003). Those rating their health as fair or poor were more likely to report a poor quality of life (r=0.487, p=0.022), to have none or primary school education only (r=0.428, p=0.047), or to have a means tested medical services card (r=0.428, p=0.047). There was no significant relation between SMR and voting pattern for the two main political parties (67.28% first preferences) but a significant relation with left wing voting (r=0.446, p=0.037). Fianna Fail voting pattern was inversely related to level of dissatisfaction with health (r= -0.59, p<0.05). There was a positive significant relation between left wing voting and dissatisfaction with health (r=0.51, p<0.02) and rate of smoking (r=0.47, p=0.03). Smoking pattern also related positively to rates of voter abstention (r=0.526, p=0.12). These data are consistent with those in other countries in showing a relation between deprivation indicators and lifestyle, but differ in that no relation with SMR and the votes cast for the main parties was seen in a country with a mainly centre right voting pattern. The relation between left wing voting pattern and some indicators of deprivation and lifestyle suggest that party political voting patterns and affiliations could be a useful indicator of vertical social capital. However, its variability as a measure across countries suggests that the inter-relation between sociocultural and economic factors and the consequent influence on health status is not straightforward.
Evidence of Pre-Roman Tribal Genetic Structure in Basques from Uniparentally Inherited Markers
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 12-03-2012
Abstract: Basque people have received considerable attention from anthropologists, geneticists, and linguists during the last century due to the singularity of their language and to other cultural and biological characteristics. Despite the multidisciplinary efforts performed to address the questions of the origin, uniqueness, and heterogeneity of Basques, the genetic studies performed up to now have suffered from a weak study design where populations are not analyzed in an adequate geographic and population context. To address the former questions and to overcome these design limitations, we have analyzed the uniparentally inherited markers (Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA) of ~900 in iduals from 18 populations, including those where Basque is currently spoken and populations from adjacent regions where Basque might have been spoken in historical times. Our results indicate that Basque-speaking populations fall within the genetic Western European gene pool, that they are similar to geographically surrounding non-Basque populations, and also that their genetic uniqueness is based on a lower amount of external influences compared with other Iberians and French populations. Our data suggest that the genetic heterogeneity and structure observed in the Basque region result from pre-Roman tribal structure related to geography and might be linked to the increased complexity of emerging societies during the Bronze Age. The rough overlap of the pre-Roman tribe location and the current dialect limits support the notion that the environmental ersity in the region has played a recurrent role in cultural differentiation and ethnogenesis at different time periods.
Creating ‘healthy built environment’ legislation in Australia; A policy analysis
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 05-09-2018
Abstract: Influencing healthy public policy through health advocacy remains challenging. This policy analysis research uses theories of agenda setting to understand how health came to be considered for specific mention in legislation arising from land-use planning system reform in New South Wales, Australia. This qualitative study follows critical realist methodology to conduct a policy analysis of the case. We collected data from purposively s led in-depth interviews (n = 9), a focus group and documentary analysis. We used three classic policy process (agenda setting) theories to develop an analytic framework for explaining the empirical data: Multiple Streams Punctuated Equilibrium Theory and Advocacy Coalition Framework. The reform process presented a window of opportunity that opened incrementally over a 2 year period. The opportunity was grasped by in idual policy entrepreneurs who subsequently formed a coalition of healthy planning advocates focused on strategically positioning 'health' as legislative objective for the new system. The actual point of influence seemed to appear suddenly when challenges to a perceived economic development agenda within the reforms peaked, and the health objective, see as non-threatening by all stakeholders, was taken up. Our analysis demonstrates how this particular point of influence followed sustained long-term activity by health advocates prior to and during the reform process. We demonstrate a theory-driven policy analysis of health advocacy efforts to influence an instance of major land-use planning reform. The application of multiple policy process theories enables deep understanding of what is required to effectively advocate for healthy public policy.
Impact evaluation of an oral health intervention amongst primary school children in Ireland
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 06-2002
Abstract: A pilot oral health programme was developed which aimed to improve dental health knowledge and behaviour amongst Irish school children aged 7-12 years. The programme comprised two integral components: a television c aign, run over a 6-week period, was incorporated into the children's programme 'Den TV' on national television, with video clips of a member of the music band Boyzone promoting key oral health messages and a Smile of the Year contest. Concurrently, a dental nurse delivered an interactive talk with pupils, showed a video of the Den TV oral health programme and distributed posters and leaflets. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of the overall intervention on school pupils' dental health knowledge and reported behaviour. Thirty-two primary schools in two health board regions in the Republic of Ireland participated in the study. At baseline and after 6 weeks, 1534 school children completed specially developed questionnaires. There was a positive net effect of the dental nurse intervention in all but one question. The percentage of children who reported using the recommended amount of toothpaste and brushing for 3 min appeared to have been further increased having observed the television c aign. These results are in line with the argument that mass media c aigns work to supplement the one-to-one activities of health professionals in order to effect knowledge and behavioural change.
Politics, policies and processes
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 12-2017
DOI: 10.1136/BMJOPEN-2017-017772
Abstract: The development and implementation of multisectoral policy to improve health and reduce health inequities has been slow and uneven. Evidence is largely focused on the facts of health inequities rather than understanding the political and policy processes. This 5-year funded programme of research investigates how these processes could function more effectively to improve equitable population health. The programme of work is organised in four work packages using four themes (macroeconomics and infrastructure, land use and urban environments, health systems and racism) related to the structural drivers shaping the distribution of power, money and resources and daily living conditions. Policy case studies will use publicly available documents (policy documents, published evaluations, media coverage) and interviews with informants (policy-makers, former politicians, civil society, private sector) (~25 per case). NVIVO software will be used to analyse the documents to see how ‘social and health equity’ is included and conceptualised. The interview data will include qualitative descriptive and theory-driven critical discourse analysis. Our quantitative methodological work assessing the impact of public policy on health equity is experimental that is in its infancy but promises to provide the type of evidence demanded by policy-makers. Our programme is recognising the inherently political nature of the uptake, formulation and implementation of policy. The early stages of our work indicate its feasibility. Our work is aided by a Critical Policy Reference Group. Multiple ethics approvals have been obtained with the foundation approval from the Social and Behavioural Ethics Committee, Flinders University (Project No: 6786). The theoretical, methodological and policy engagement processes established will provide improved evidence for policy-makers who wish to reduce health inequities and inform a new generation of policy savvy knowledge on social determinants.
Toward a Research and Action Agenda on Urban Planning/Design and Health Equity in Cities in Low and Middle-Income Countries
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 20-08-2011
Secular changes and predictors of adult height for 86 105 male and female members of the Thai Cohort Study born between 1940 and 1990
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 30-08-2012
Obesogenic island: the financial burden of private transport on low-income households
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 19-01-2008
Abstract: The physical and social environment influences access to a healthy lifestyle, of which transport is one determining factor. This paper estimates the cost of transport on the island of Ireland. Budget standards were developed on the basis of costs of baskets of core goods and services required for daily living. The transport budget was based on the needs of an urban living family. Financial capacity of the family relative to transport basket costs was determined. Transport costs vary depending on family type and car ownership. The motoring costs for a family with two unemployed adults, with a weekly financial capacity of 388.28 euros and 427.70 euros, respectively, for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, amount to 94.78 euros and 74.68 euros, representing 18 and 10% of the family's weekly income. The prohibitive costs of private transport present an opportunity for policy makers to consider creating supportive environments incorporating the more cost-effective and environmentally friendly options of public transport. Without such measures, dependence on private transport will exacerbate the incidence of food poverty and the health inequalities consequent upon it.
Gender, socioeconomic status, and self-rated health in a transitional middle-income setting: Evidence from Thailand
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 10-05-2011
Abstract: Poor self-rated health (SRH) correlates strongly with mortality. In developed countries, women generally report worse SRH than males. Few studies have reported on SRH in developing countries. The authors report on SRH in Thailand, a middle-income developing country.The data were derived from a large nationwide cohort of 87 134 adult Open University students (54% female, median age 29 years). The authors included questions on socioeconomic and demographic factors that could influence SRH. The Thai cohort in this study mirrors patterns found in developed countries, with females reporting more frequent “poor” or “very poor” SRH (odds ratio = 1.35 95% confidence interval = 1.26-1.44). Cohort males had better SRH than females, but levels were more sensitive to socioeconomic status. Income and education had little influence on SRH for females. Among educated Thai adults, females rate their health to be worse than males, and unlike males, this perception is relatively unaffected by socioeconomic status.
What Generates Attention to Health in Trade Policy-Making? Lessons From Success in Tobacco Control and Access to Medicines: A Qualitative Study of Australia and the (Comprehensive and Progressive) Tra
Publisher: Maad Rayan Publishing Company
Date: 07-06-2020
Abstract: Background: Despite greater attention to the nexus between trade and investment agreements and their potential impacts on public health, less is known regarding the political and governance conditions that enable or constrain attention to health issues on government trade agendas. Drawing on interviews with key stakeholders in the Australian trade domain, this article provides novel insights from policy actors into the range of factors that can enable or constrain attention to health in trade negotiations. Methods: A qualitative case study was chosen focused on Australia’s participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations and the domestic agenda-setting processes that shaped the government’s negotiating mandate. Process tracing via document analysis of media reporting, parliamentary records and government inquiries identified key events during Australia’s participation in the TPP negotiations. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 25 key government and non-government policy actors including Federal politicians, public servants, representatives from public interest nongovernment organisations and industry associations, and academic experts. Results: Interviews revealed that domestic concerns for protecting regulatory space for access to generic medicines and tobacco control emerged onto the Australian government’s trade agenda. This contrasted with other health issues like alcohol control and nutrition and food systems that did not appear to receive attention. The analysis suggests sixteen key factors that shaped attention to these different health issues, including the strength of exporter interests extent of political will of Trade and Health Ministers framing of health issues support within the major political parties exogenous influencing events public support the strength of available evidence and the presence of existing domestic legislation and international treaties, among others. Conclusion: These findings aid understanding of the factors that can enable or constrain attention to health issues on government trade agendas, and offer insights for potential pathways to elevate greater attention to health in future. They provide a suite of conditions that appear to shape attention to health outside the biomedical health domain for further research in the commercial determinants of health.
Implementing Universal and Targeted Policies for Health Equity: Lessons From Australia
Publisher: Maad Rayan Publishing Company
Date: 09-11-2021
Abstract: Background: Debate continues in public health on the roles of universal or targeted policies in providing equity of access to health-related goods or services, and thereby contributing to health equity. Research examining policy implementation can provide fresh insights on these issues. Methods: We synthesised findings across case studies of policy implementation in four policy areas of primary healthcare (PHC), telecommunications, Indigenous health and land use policy, which incorporated a variety of universal and targeted policy structures. We analysed findings according to three criteria of equity in access – availability, affordability and acceptability – and definitions of universal, proportionate-universal, targeted and residual policies, and devolved governance structures. Results: Our analysis showed that existing universal, proportionate-universal and targeted policies in an Australian context displayed strengths and weaknesses in addressing availability, affordability and acceptability dimensions of equity in access. Conclusion: While residualist policies are unfavourable to equity of access, other forms of targeting as well as universal and proportionate-universal structure have the potential to be combined in context-specific ways favourable to equity of access to health-related goods and services. To optimise benefits, policies should address equity of access in the three dimensions of availability, affordability and acceptability. Devolved governance structures have the potential to augment equity benefits of either universal or targeted policies.
Food systems transformations, ultra-processed food markets and the nutrition transition in Asia
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-2016
Healthy infrastructure
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-02-2019
Systems, food security and human health
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 11-03-2015
Global health equity: evidence for action on the social determinants of health
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 12-2008
Abstract: More than 30 years ago, the older of us published a paper with the proposal that all scientific papers should start with a statement along the lines of: "These are the opinions on which I base my facts". Why pretend? To take a topical ex le, if you are on the nature side of the nature/nurture debates, is it likely that your next paper will be an apologia: "I take it all back genes don't matter at all it is all environment"? Unlikely. Similarly, if you are on the other side. (We know. It's both.) Here, we are not in any way arguing for a relativist credo that would say opinions are all. Along with other readers of this journal, we spend a good part of our working lives gathering, analysing and interpreting empirical evidence. Evidence matters. But everyone has values and they do affect our positions.
Power and the people's health
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2021
A Time for Hope? Pursuing a Vision of a Fair, Sustainable and Healthy World
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 14-04-2018
Urban Environmental Health Hazards and Health Equity
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 21-04-2007
Shrinking the food-print: A qualitative study into consumer perceptions, experiences and attitudes towards healthy and environmentally friendly food behaviours
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2017
DOI: 10.1016/J.APPET.2016.09.030
Abstract: Internationally, there is increasing recognition of the importance of multilevel policies and actions that address healthy and environmentally friendly food behaviours. However it is not yet clear which actions are most suitable to support consumers to adopt both behaviours concurrently. To this end, we undertook a qualitative study to assess consumer perceptions, experiences and attitudes towards healthy and environmentally friendly foods and four target behaviours: reducing overconsumption of food beyond energy needs, reducing consumption of low-nutrient energy dense foods, eating less animal- and more plant-derived foods, and reducing food waste. Online in-depth interviews were held with 29 Australian food shoppers representing different levels of involvement with health and environment in daily food choices. The results indicate that compared to health, the relationship between food and the environment is rarely considered by consumers. The four target food behaviours were primarily associated and motivated by an impact on health, except for not wasting foods. Participants had the most positive attitude and highest motivation for eating less processed and packaged foods, mostly to avoid excessive packaging and 'chemicals' in foods. This was followed by the behaviours reducing food waste and overconsumption. Conversely, there was a predominantly negative attitude towards, and low motivation for, eating less animal-derived products and more plant based foods. Overall, consumers found a joined concept of healthy and environmentally friendly foods an acceptable idea. We recommend that health should remain the overarching principle for policies and actions concerned with shifting consumer behaviours, as this personal benefit appears to have a greater potential to support behaviour change. Future consumer focused work could pay attention to framing behavioural messages, providing intermediate behavioural goals, and a multiple target approach to change habitual behaviours.
Effect of specimen history on structure and in-plane permeability of woven fabrics
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 22-05-2014
Abstract: Before being processed into composites, reinforcement fabrics may undergo repeated involuntary deformation, the complete sequence of which is here referred to as specimen history. To mimic its effect, fabric specimens were subjected to sequences of defined shear operations. For single fabric layers with unconstrained thickness, quantitative evaluation of photographic image data indicated that repeated shear deformation results in a residual increase in inter-yarn gap width. This translates into an increase in measured fabric permeabilities in multi-layer lay-ups at given compaction levels. The extent of both interrelated effects increases with increasing yarn density in the fabric and with increasing maximum angle in the shear history. Additional numerical permeability predictions indicated that the increase in permeability may be partially reversed by through-thickness fabric compression. The observations suggest that the effect of involuntary deformation of the fabric structure can result in variations in the principal permeability values by factors of up to 2.
Formulating policy activities to promote healthy and sustainable diets
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 18-08-2015
DOI: 10.1017/S1368980015002529
Abstract: To develop a policy formulation tool for strategically informing food and nutrition policy activities to promote healthy and sustainable diets (HSD). A policy formulation tool consisting of two complementary components was developed. First, a conceptual framework of the environment–public health nutrition relationship was constructed to characterise and conceptualise the food system problem. Second, an ‘Orders of Food Systems Change’ schema drawing on systems dynamics thinking was developed to identify, assess and propose policy options to redesign food systems. Food and nutrition policy activities to promote HSD have been politicised, fragmented and lacking a coherent conceptual and strategic focus to tackle complex food system challenges. The tool’s conceptual framework component comprises three integrated dimensions: (i) a structure built around the environment and public health nutrition relationship that is mediated via the food system (ii) internal mechanisms that operate through system dynamics and (iii) external interactions that frame its nature and a scope within ecological parameters. The accompanying schema is structured around three orders of change distinguished by contrasting ideological perspectives on the type and extent of change needed to ‘solve’ the HSD problem. The conceptual framework’s systems analysis of the environment–public health nutrition relationship sets out the food system challenges for HSD. The schema helps account for political realities in policy making and is a key link to operationalise the framework’s concepts to actions aimed at redesigning food systems. In combination they provide a policy formulation tool to strategically inform policy activities to redesign food systems and promote HSD.
Creating Political Will for Action on Health Equity: Practical Lessons for Public Health Policy Actors
Publisher: Maad Rayan Publishing Company
Date: 05-12-2020
Abstract: Background: Despite growing evidence on the social determinants of health and health equity, political action has not been commensurate. Little is known about how political will operates to enact pro-equity policies or not. This paper examines how political will for pro-health equity policies is created through analysis of public policy in multiple sectors. Methods: Eight case studies were undertaken of Australian policies where action was either taken or proposed on health equity or where the policy seemed contrary to such action. Telephone or face-to-face interviews were conducted with 192 state and non-state participants. Analysis of the cases was done through thematic analysis and triangulated with document analysis. Results: Our case studies covered: trade agreements, primary healthcare (PHC), work conditions, digital access, urban planning, social welfare and Indigenous health. The extent of political will for pro-equity policies depended on the strength of path dependency, electoral concerns, political philosophy, the strength of economic and biomedical framings, whether elite interests were threatened and the success or otherwise of civil society lobbying. Conclusion: Public health policy actors may create political will through: determining how path dependency that exacerbates health inequities can be broken, working with sympathetic political forces committed to fairness framing policy options in a way that makes them more likely to be adopted, outlining factors to consider in challenging the interests of elites, and considering the extent to which civil society will work in favour of equitable policies. A shift in norms is required to stress equity and the right to health.
A Quantitative Proteome Map of the Human Body
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2020
Universal Health Coverage for Non-communicable Diseases and Health Equity
Publisher: Maad Rayan Publishing Company
Date: 23-11-2022
Abstract: Background: Universal health coverage (UHC) is central to current international debate on health policy. The primary healthcare (PHC) system is crucial to achieving UHC, in order to address the rising incidence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) more effectively and equitably. In this paper, we examine the Australian case as a mature system of UHC and identify lessons for UHC policy to support equity of access to PHC and reduce NCDs. Methods: Our qualitative research used policy mapping and monitoring and 30 key informant interviews, and applied policy theory, to investigate the implementation of Australian PHC policy between 2008 and 2018. Results: Although the Australian PHC system does support equity of access to primary medical care, other ideational, actor-centred and structural features of policy detract from the capacities of the system to prevent and manage NCDs effectively, deliver equity of access according to need, and support equity in health outcomes. These features include a dominant focus on episodic primary medical care, which is a poor model of care for NCDs, and an inequitable distribution of these services. Also, a mixed system of public and private insurance coverage in PHC contributes to inequities in access and health outcomes, driving additional NCD demand into the health system. Conclusion: Countries aiming to achieve UHC to support health equity and reduce NCDs can learn from strengths and weaknesses in the Australian system. We recommend a range of ideational, actor-centred and structural features of UHC systems in PHC that will support effective action on NCDs, equity of access to care according to need, and equity in health outcomes across geographically and ethnically erse populations.
‘Including health in systems responsible for urban planning’: a realist policy analysis research programme: Figure 1
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 07-2015
Population Differentiation of Southern Indian Male Lineages Correlates with Agricultural Expansions Predating the Caste System
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 28-11-2012
Australia's health divide: time to address the underlying causes
Publisher: AMPCo
Date: 06-2018
DOI: 10.5694/MJA17.01215
Social determinants in an Australian urban region
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 08-08-2016
Abstract: Area-based strategies have been widely employed in efforts to improve population health and take action on social determinants of health (SDH) and health inequities, including in urban areas where many of the social, economic and environmental factors converge to influence health. Increasingly, these factors are recognized as being part of a complex system, where population health outcomes are shaped by multiple, interacting factors operating at different levels of social organization. This article reports on research to assess the extent to which an alliance of health and human service networks is able to promote action on SDH within an Australian urban region, using a complex systems frame. We found that such an alliance was able to promote some effective action which takes into account complex interactions between social factors affecting health, but also identified significant potential barriers to other forms of desired action identified by alliance members. We found that a complex systems lens was useful in assessing a collaborative intervention to address SDH within an urban region.
Dietary diversity in Khon Kaen, Thailand, 1988 2006
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 08-01-2007
DOI: 10.1093/IJE/DYL288
An integrated approach to identifying and characterising resilient urban food systems to promote population health in a changing climate
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 10-04-2015
DOI: 10.1017/S1368980015000610
Abstract: To determine key points of intervention in urban food systems to improve the climate resilience, equity and healthfulness of the whole system. The paper brings together evidence from a 3-year, Australia-based mixed-methods research project focused on climate change adaptation, cities, food systems and health. In an integrated analysis of the three research domains – encompassing the production, distribution and consumption sectors of the food chain – the paper examines the efficacy of various food subsystems (industrial, alternative commercial and civic) in achieving climate resilience and good nutrition. Greater Western Sydney, Australia. Primary producers, retailers and consumers in Western Sydney. This overarching analysis of the tripartite study found that: (i) industrial food production systems can be more environmentally sustainable than alternative systems, indicating the importance of multiple food subsystems for food security (ii) a variety of food distributors stocking healthy and sustainable items is required to ensure that these items are accessible, affordable and available to all and (iii) it is not enough that healthy and sustainable foods are produced or sold, consumers must also want to consume them. In summary, a resilient urban food system requires that healthy and sustainable food items are produced, that consumers can attain them and that they actually wish to purchase them. This capstone paper found that the interconnected nature of the different sectors in the food system means that to improve environmental sustainability, equity and population health outcomes, action should focus on the system as a whole and not just on any one sector.
Monitoring policy and actions on food environments: Rationale and outline of the INFORMAS policy engagement and communication strategies
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-09-2013
DOI: 10.1111/OBR.12072
Abstract: The International Network for Food and Obesity/non-communicable diseases Research, Monitoring and Action Support (INFORMAS) proposes to collect performance indicators on food policies, actions and environments related to obesity and non-communicable diseases. This paper reviews existing communications strategies used for performance indicators and proposes the approach to be taken for INFORMAS. Twenty-seven scoring and rating tools were identified in various fields of public health including alcohol, tobacco, physical activity, infant feeding and food environments. These were compared based on the types of indicators used and how they were quantified, scoring methods, presentation and the communication and reporting strategies used. There are several implications of these analyses for INFORMAS: the ratings/benchmarking approach is very commonly used, presumably because it is an effective way to communicate progress and stimulate action, although this has not been formally evaluated the tools used must be trustworthy, pragmatic and policy-relevant multiple channels of communication will be needed communications need to be tailored and targeted to decision-makers data and methods should be freely accessible. The proposed communications strategy for INFORMAS has been built around these lessons to ensure that INFORMAS's outputs have the greatest chance of being used to improve food environments.
Global health equity and climate stabilisation: a common agenda
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2008
Monitoring and benchmarking government policies and actions to improve the healthiness of food environments: A proposed government healthy food environment policy index
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-09-2013
DOI: 10.1111/OBR.12073
Abstract: Government action is essential to increase the healthiness of food environments and reduce obesity, diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and their related inequalities. This paper proposes a monitoring framework to assess government policies and actions for creating healthy food environments. Recommendations from relevant authoritative organizations and expert advisory groups for reducing obesity and NCDs were examined, and pertinent components were incorporated into a comprehensive framework for monitoring government policies and actions. A Government Healthy Food Environment Policy Index (Food-EPI) was developed, which comprises a 'policy' component with seven domains on specific aspects of food environments, and an 'infrastructure support' component with seven domains to strengthen systems to prevent obesity and NCDs. These were revised through a week-long consultation process with international experts. Ex les of good practice statements are proposed within each domain, and these will evolve into benchmarks established by governments at the forefront of creating and implementing food policies for good health. A rating process is proposed to assess a government's level of policy implementation towards good practice. The Food-EPI will be pre-tested and piloted in countries of varying size and income levels. The benchmarking of government policy implementation has the potential to catalyse greater action to reduce obesity and NCDs.
Clan, language, and migration history has shaped genetic diversity in Haida and Tlingit populations from Southeast Alaska
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-2012
DOI: 10.1002/AJPA.22068
A proposed approach to monitor private-sector policies and practices related to food environments, obesity and non-communicable disease prevention
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-09-2013
DOI: 10.1111/OBR.12074
Abstract: Private-sector organizations play a critical role in shaping the food environments of in iduals and populations. However, there is currently very limited independent monitoring of private-sector actions related to food environments. This paper reviews previous efforts to monitor the private sector in this area, and outlines a proposed approach to monitor private-sector policies and practices related to food environments, and their influence on obesity and non-communicable disease (NCD) prevention. A step-wise approach to data collection is recommended, in which the first ('minimal') step is the collation of publicly available food and nutrition-related policies of selected private-sector organizations. The second ('expanded') step assesses the nutritional composition of each organization's products, their promotions to children, their labelling practices, and the accessibility, availability and affordability of their products. The third ('optimal') step includes data on other commercial activities that may influence food environments, such as political lobbying and corporate philanthropy. The proposed approach will be further developed and piloted in countries of varying size and income levels. There is potential for this approach to enable national and international benchmarking of private-sector policies and practices, and to inform efforts to hold the private sector to account for their role in obesity and NCD prevention.
Action on the social determinants of health and health inequities goes global.
Publisher: Annual Reviews
Date: 21-04-2011
DOI: 10.1146/ANNUREV-PUBLHEALTH-031210-101220
Abstract: Marked health inequities exist between regions, between countries, and within countries. Reducing these inequities in health requires attention to the unfair distribution of power, money, and resources and the conditions of everyday life. These are the social determinants of health. The World Health Organization (WHO) Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) brought together a global evidence base of what could be done to reduce these health inequities, demonstrating that economic and social policy, if done well, can improve health and health equity. A global movement for health equity was reignited by the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health when it made a call to action upon delivering its final report.
Monitoring the levels of important nutrients in the food supply
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-09-2013
DOI: 10.1111/OBR.12075
Abstract: A food supply that delivers energy-dense products with high levels of salt, saturated fats and trans fats, in large portion sizes, is a major cause of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The highly processed foods produced by large food corporations are primary drivers of increases in consumption of these adverse nutrients. The objective of this paper is to present an approach to monitoring food composition that can both document the extent of the problem and underpin novel actions to address it. The monitoring approach seeks to systematically collect information on high-level contextual factors influencing food composition and assess the energy density, salt, saturated fat, trans fats and portion sizes of highly processed foods for sale in retail outlets (with a focus on supermarkets and quick-service restaurants). Regular surveys of food composition are proposed across geographies and over time using a pragmatic, standardized methodology. Surveys have already been undertaken in several high- and middle-income countries, and the trends have been valuable in informing policy approaches. The purpose of collecting data is not to exhaustively document the composition of all foods in the food supply in each country, but rather to provide information to support governments, industry and communities to develop and enact strategies to curb food-related NCDs.
A conceptual framework for investigating the impacts of international trade and investment agreements on noncommunicable disease risk factors
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 02-11-2002
Monitoring food and non-alcoholic beverage promotions to children
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-09-2013
DOI: 10.1111/OBR.12076
Abstract: Food and non-alcoholic beverage marketing is recognized as an important factor influencing food choices related to non-communicable diseases. The monitoring of populations' exposure to food and non-alcoholic beverage promotions, and the content of these promotions, is necessary to generate evidence to understand the extent of the problem, and to determine appropriate and effective policy responses. A review of studies measuring the nature and extent of exposure to food promotions was conducted to identify approaches to monitoring food promotions via dominant media platforms. A step-wise approach, comprising 'minimal', 'expanded' and 'optimal' monitoring activities, was designed. This approach can be used to assess the frequency and level of exposure of population groups (especially children) to food promotions, the persuasive power of techniques used in promotional communications (power of promotions) and the nutritional composition of promoted food products. Detailed procedures for data s ling, data collection and data analysis for a range of media types are presented, as well as quantifiable measurement indicators for assessing exposure to and power of food and non-alcoholic beverage promotions. The proposed framework supports the development of a consistent system for monitoring food and non-alcoholic beverage promotions for comparison between countries and over time.
A new generation of trade policy: potential risks to diet-related health from the trans pacific partnership agreement
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 2013
Potential environmental and population health impacts of local urban food systems under climate change: A life cycle analysis case study of lettuce and chicken
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 26-03-2014
Social Conditions and Urban Health Inequities: Realities, Challenges and Opportunities to Transform the Urban Landscape through Research and Action
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-08-2011
Climate change adaptation and mitigation: next steps for cross-sectoral action to protect global health
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-04-2013
Recombination networks as genetic markers in a human variation study of the Old World
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-10-2011
DOI: 10.1007/S00439-011-1104-8
Abstract: We have analyzed human genetic ersity in 33 Old World populations including 23 populations obtained through Genographic Project studies. A set of 1,536 SNPs in five X chromosome regions were genotyped in 1,288 in iduals (mostly males). We use a novel analysis employing subARG network construction with recombining chromosomal segments. Here, a subARG is constructed independently for each of five gene-free regions across the X chromosome, and the results are aggregated across them. For PCA, MDS and ancestry inference with STRUCTURE, the subARG is processed to obtain feature vectors of s les and pairwise distances between s les. The observed population structure, estimated from the five short X chromosomal segments, supports genome-wide frequency-based analyses: African populations show higher genetic ersity, and the general trend of shared variation is seen across the globe from Africa through Middle East, Europe, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia in broad patterns. The recombinational analysis was also compared with established methods based on SNPs and haplotypes. For haplotypes, we also employed a fixed-length approach based on information-content optimization. Our recombinational analysis suggested a southern migration route out of Africa, and it also supports a single, rapid human expansion from Africa to East Asia through South Asia.
Building environmentally sustainable food systems on informed citizen choices: evidence from Australia
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 28-02-2014
Neolithic mitochondrial haplogroup H genomes and the genetic origins of Europeans
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 23-04-2013
DOI: 10.1038/NCOMMS2656
Climate change and health: risks and inequities
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Date: 10-02-2011
Monitoring the health-related labelling of foods and non-alcoholic beverages in retail settings
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-09-2013
DOI: 10.1111/OBR.12077
Abstract: Food labelling on food packaging has the potential to have both positive and negative effects on diets. Monitoring different aspects of food labelling would help to identify priority policy options to help people make healthier food choices. A taxonomy of the elements of health-related food labelling is proposed. A systematic review of studies that assessed the nature and extent of health-related food labelling has been conducted to identify approaches to monitoring food labelling. A step-wise approach has been developed for independently assessing the nature and extent of health-related food labelling in different countries and over time. Procedures for s ling the food supply, and collecting and analysing data are proposed, as well as quantifiable measurement indicators and benchmarks for health-related food labelling.
Will the next generation of preferential trade and investment agreements undermine prevention of noncommunicable diseases? A prospective policy analysis of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2015
DOI: 10.1016/J.HEALTHPOL.2014.08.002
Abstract: The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is one of a new generation of 'deep' preferential trade and investment agreements that will extend many of the provisions seen in previous agreements. This paper presents a prospective policy analysis of the likely text of the TPPA, with reference to nutrition policy space. Specifically, we analyse how the TPPA may constrain governments' policy space to implement the 'policy options for promoting a healthy diet' in the World Health Organization's Global Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) 2013-2020. This policy analysis suggests that if certain binding commitments are made under the TPPA, they could constrain the ability of governments to protect nutrition policy from the influence of vested interests, reduce the range of interventions available to actively discourage consumption of less healthy food (and to promote healthy food) and limit governments' capacity to implement these interventions, and reduce resources available for nutrition education initiatives. There is scope to protect policy space by including specific exclusions and/or exceptions during negotiation of trade and investment agreements like the TPPA, and by strengthening global health frameworks for nutrition to enable them to be used as reference during disputes in trade fora.
Health in All Policies Approaches: Pearls from the Western Pacific Region
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-2015
DOI: 10.1002/APP5.89
Promoting equity in the mental wellbeing of children and young people: A scoping review
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 09-2015
Abstract: There is increasing emphasis on wellbeing as a target for mental health promotion, especially during the formative period of childhood. Despite growing research on the importance of mental wellbeing, there is little information on how to effectively promote it or how to promote it equitably. This article presents a scoping review of interventions which seek to promote mental wellbeing and reduce inequities in children and young people living in high income countries. We used Fair Foundations: The VicHealth framework for health equity (VicHealth (2013) Melbourne, Australia: The Victorian Health Promotion Foundation) to identify points of entry at three layers of influence: (i) socioeconomic, cultural and political contexts, (ii) daily living conditions, and (iii) in idual and family health-related factors. We identified more than 1000 interventions which aimed to prevent or treat childhood mental illness, but there were far fewer that aimed to promote children's or young people's mental wellbeing. The interventions we studied were either universal or specifically targeted children from disadvantaged families: none explicitly used an equity framework to guide their design or evaluation or addressed social gradients in wellbeing. Most interventions remained focused on proximate factors, although we also identified a handful of interventions that sought to address children's access to services and their educational and neighbourhood environments. However, we found encouraging evidence that interventions in family and educational settings were successful in building children's strengths and supporting positive parenting, universally and within disadvantaged groups. Such positive programme evaluations signal the potential for using a proportionate universalism approach that emphasizes equity in the promotion of mental wellbeing.
Monitoring the price and affordability of foods and diets globally
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-09-2013
DOI: 10.1111/OBR.12078
Abstract: Food prices and food affordability are important determinants of food choices, obesity and non-communicable diseases. As governments around the world consider policies to promote the consumption of healthier foods, data on the relative price and affordability of foods, with a particular focus on the difference between 'less healthy' and 'healthy' foods and diets, are urgently needed. This paper briefly reviews past and current approaches to monitoring food prices, and identifies key issues affecting the development of practical tools and methods for food price data collection, analysis and reporting. A step-wise monitoring framework, including measurement indicators, is proposed. 'Minimal' data collection will assess the differential price of 'healthy' and 'less healthy' foods 'expanded' monitoring will assess the differential price of 'healthy' and 'less healthy' diets and the 'optimal' approach will also monitor food affordability, by taking into account household income. The monitoring of the price and affordability of 'healthy' and 'less healthy' foods and diets globally will provide robust data and benchmarks to inform economic and fiscal policy responses. Given the range of methodological, cultural and logistical challenges in this area, it is imperative that all aspects of the proposed monitoring framework are tested rigorously before implementation.
Monitoring foods and beverages provided and sold in public sector settings
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-09-2013
DOI: 10.1111/OBR.12079
Abstract: This paper outlines a step-wise framework for monitoring foods and beverages provided or sold in publicly funded institutions. The focus is on foods in schools, but the framework can also be applied to foods provided or sold in other publicly funded institutions. Data collection and evaluation within this monitoring framework will consist of two components. In component I, information on existing food or nutrition policies and/or programmes within settings would be compiled. Currently, nutrition standards and voluntary guidelines associated with such policies rogrammes vary widely globally. This paper, which provides a comprehensive review of such standards and guidelines, will facilitate institutional learnings for those jurisdictions that have not yet established them or are undergoing review of existing ones. In component II, the quality of foods provided or sold in public sector settings is evaluated relative to existing national or sub-national nutrition standards or voluntary guidelines. Where there are no (or only poor) standards or guidelines available, the nutritional quality of foods can be evaluated relative to standards of a similar jurisdiction or other appropriate standards. Measurement indicators are proposed (within 'minimal', 'expanded' and 'optimal' approaches) that can be used to monitor progress over time in meeting policy objectives, and facilitate comparisons between countries.
Barriers to healthy dietary choice amongst students in Sri Lanka as perceived by school principals and staff
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 17-06-2015
Abstract: Sri Lanka has experienced a massive demographic, environmental, economic and social transition in recent decades. Over this period of time the country has undergone rapid urbanization leading to accompanying shifts in lifestyle and it suffers a double burden of under- and over-nutrition. Current programmes in the country focus on improving the dietary behaviour of secondary school students. The purpose of this study was to investigate principal's perceptions on barriers to healthy dietary choice among pupils within a socio-ecological framework. Focus groups (n = 11) were carried out with school principals and staff (n = 55) in two rural districts of Sri Lanka. Principals identified a number of barriers to healthy dietary choice by students, which could be found at a number of levels of influence of a socio-ecological framework: (i) structural level barriers included educational and agricultural policies, (ii) living and working level barriers included employment opportunities and local food production, (iii) social and community level barriers included traditions and social/cultural beliefs and (iv) in idual level barriers included knowledge and preference. Findings from this study suggest that the barriers to healthy dietary choice amongst secondary school students in Sri Lanka occur at many levels supporting the use of multifactorial programmes to promote healthy eating. Only from understanding these barriers and finding ways to counter them can we hope to reduce the double burden of under- and over-nutrition the country is currently suffering.
Genetic diversity in P uerto R ico and its implications for the peopling of the I sland and the W est I ndies
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-07-2014
DOI: 10.1002/AJPA.22569
Abstract: Puerto Rico and the surrounding islands rest on the eastern fringe of the Caribbean's Greater Antilles, located less than 100 miles northwest of the Lesser Antilles. Puerto Ricans are genetic descendants of pre-Columbian peoples, as well as peoples of European and African descent through 500 years of migration to the island. To infer these patterns of pre-Columbian and historic peopling of the Caribbean, we characterized genetic ersity in 326 in iduals from the southeastern region of Puerto Rico and the island municipality of Vieques. We sequenced the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region of all of the s les and the complete mitogenomes of 12 of them to infer their putative place of origin. In addition, we genotyped 121 male s les for 25 Y-chromosome single nucleotide polymorphism and 17 STR loci. Approximately 60% of the participants had indigenous mtDNA haplotypes (mostly from haplogroups A2 and C1), while 25% had African and 15% European haplotypes. Three A2 sublineages were unique to the Greater Antilles, one of which was similar to Mesoamerican types, while C1b haplogroups showed links to South America, suggesting that people reached the island from the two distinct continental source areas. However, none of the male participants had indigenous Y-chromosomes, with 85% of them instead being European/Mediterranean and 15% sub-Saharan African in origin. West Eurasian Y-chromosome short tandem repeat haplotypes were quite erse and showed similarities to those observed in southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. These results attest to the distinct, yet equally complex, pasts for the male and female ancestors of modern day Puerto Ricans.
Governing for a Healthy Population: Towards an Understanding of How Decision-Making Will Determine Our Global Health in a Changing Climate
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 29-12-2011
The role of trade and investment liberalization in the sugar-sweetened carbonated beverages market: a natural experiment contrasting Vietnam and the Philippines
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-10-2015
Monitoring the impacts of trade agreements on food environments
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-09-2013
DOI: 10.1111/OBR.12081
Abstract: The liberalization of international trade and foreign direct investment through multilateral, regional and bilateral agreements has had profound implications for the structure and nature of food systems, and therefore, for the availability, nutritional quality, accessibility, price and promotion of foods in different locations. Public health attention has only relatively recently turned to the links between trade and investment agreements, diets and health, and there is currently no systematic monitoring of this area. This paper reviews the available evidence on the links between trade agreements, food environments and diets from an obesity and non-communicable disease (NCD) perspective. Based on the key issues identified through the review, the paper outlines an approach for monitoring the potential impact of trade agreements on food environments and obesity/NCD risks. The proposed monitoring approach encompasses a set of guiding principles, recommended procedures for data collection and analysis, and quantifiable 'minimal', 'expanded' and 'optimal' measurement indicators to be tailored to national priorities, capacity and resources. Formal risk assessment processes of existing and evolving trade and investment agreements, which focus on their impacts on food environments will help inform the development of healthy trade policy, strengthen domestic nutrition and health policy space and ultimately protect population nutrition.
Opportunities and challenges in developing a whole-of-government national food and nutrition policy: lessons from Australia’s National Food Plan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 15-06-2015
DOI: 10.1017/S1368980015001834
Abstract: The present article tracks the development of the Australian National Food Plan as a ‘whole of government’ food policy that aimed to integrate elements of nutrition and sustainability alongside economic objectives. The article uses policy analysis to explore the processes of consultation and stakeholder involvement in the development of the National Food Plan, focusing on actors from the sectors of industry, civil society and government. Existing documentation and submissions to the Plan were used as data sources. Models of health policy analysis and policy streams were employed to analyse policy development processes. Australia. Australian food policy stakeholders. The development of the Plan was influenced by powerful industry groups and stakeholder engagement by the lead ministry favoured the involvement of actors representing the food and agriculture industries. Public health nutrition and civil society relied on traditional methods of policy influence, and the public health nutrition movement failed to develop a unified cross-sector alliance, while the private sector engaged in different ways and presented a united front. The National Food Plan failed to deliver an integrated food policy for Australia. Nutrition and sustainability were effectively sidelined due to the focus on global food production and positioning Australia as a food ‘superpower’ that could take advantage of the anticipated ‘dining boom’ as incomes rose in the Asia-Pacific region. New forms of industry influence are emerging in the food policy arena and public health nutrition will need to adopt new approaches to influencing public policy.
A New Method to Reconstruct Recombination Events at a Genomic Scale
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 24-11-2010
Climate Change, Noncommunicable Diseases, and Development: The Relationships and Common Policy Opportunities
Publisher: Annual Reviews
Date: 21-04-2011
DOI: 10.1146/ANNUREV-PUBLHEALTH-071910-140612
Abstract: The rapid growth in noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), including injury and poor mental health, in low- and middle-income countries and the widening social gradients in NCDs within most countries worldwide pose major challenges to health and social systems and to development more generally. As Earth's surface temperature rises, a consequence of human-induced climate change, incidences of severe heat waves, droughts, storms, and floods will increase and become more severe. These changes will bring heightened risks to human survival and will likely exacerbate the incidence of some NCDs, including cardiovascular disease, some cancers, respiratory health, mental disorders, injuries, and malnutrition. These two great and urgent contemporary human challenges—to improve global health, especially the control of NCDs, and to protect people from the effects of climate change—would benefit from alignment of their policy agendas, offering synergistic opportunities to improve population and planetary health. Well-designed climate change policy can reduce the incidence of major NCDs in local populations.
Non-fatal injury in Thailand from 2005 to 2013: Incidence trends and links to alcohol consumption patterns in the Thai Cohort Study
Publisher: Japan Epidemiological Association
Date: 2016
It's time to determine the cost of a healthy diet in Australia
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2007
INFORMAS (International Network for Food and Obesity/non-communicable diseases Research, Monitoring and Action Support): Overview and key principles
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-09-2013
DOI: 10.1111/OBR.12087
Abstract: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) dominate disease burdens globally and poor nutrition increasingly contributes to this global burden. Comprehensive monitoring of food environments, and evaluation of the impact of public and private sector policies on food environments is needed to strengthen accountability systems to reduce NCDs. The International Network for Food and Obesity/NCDs Research, Monitoring and Action Support (INFORMAS) is a global network of public-interest organizations and researchers that aims to monitor, benchmark and support public and private sector actions to create healthy food environments and reduce obesity, NCDs and their related inequalities. The INFORMAS framework includes two 'process' modules, that monitor the policies and actions of the public and private sectors, seven 'impact' modules that monitor the key characteristics of food environments and three 'outcome' modules that monitor dietary quality, risk factors and NCD morbidity and mortality. Monitoring frameworks and indicators have been developed for 10 modules to provide consistency, but allowing for stepwise approaches ('minimal', 'expanded', 'optimal') to data collection and analysis. INFORMAS data will enable benchmarking of food environments between countries, and monitoring of progress over time within countries. Through monitoring and benchmarking, INFORMAS will strengthen the accountability systems needed to help reduce the burden of obesity, NCDs and their related inequalities.
Effect of predicted protein-truncating genetic variants on the human transcriptome
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 08-05-2015
Abstract: Human genomes show extensive genetic variation across in iduals, but we have only just started documenting the effects of this variation on the regulation of gene expression. Furthermore, only a few tissues have been examined per genetic variant. In order to examine how genetic expression varies among tissues within in iduals, the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) Consortium collected 1641 postmortem s les covering 54 body sites from 175 in iduals. They identified quantitative genetic traits that affect gene expression and determined which of these exhibit tissue-specific expression patterns. Melé et al. measured how transcription varies among tissues, and Rivas et al. looked at how truncated protein variants affect expression across tissues. Science , this issue p. 648 , p. 660 , p. 666 see also p. 640
Formulating policy activities to promote healthy and sustainable diets
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 18-08-2015
DOI: 10.1017/S1368980015002529
Abstract: To develop a policy formulation tool for strategically informing food and nutrition policy activities to promote healthy and sustainable diets (HSD). A policy formulation tool consisting of two complementary components was developed. First, a conceptual framework of the environment–public health nutrition relationship was constructed to characterise and conceptualise the food system problem. Second, an ‘Orders of Food Systems Change’ schema drawing on systems dynamics thinking was developed to identify, assess and propose policy options to redesign food systems. Food and nutrition policy activities to promote HSD have been politicised, fragmented and lacking a coherent conceptual and strategic focus to tackle complex food system challenges. The tool’s conceptual framework component comprises three integrated dimensions: (i) a structure built around the environment and public health nutrition relationship that is mediated via the food system (ii) internal mechanisms that operate through system dynamics and (iii) external interactions that frame its nature and a scope within ecological parameters. The accompanying schema is structured around three orders of change distinguished by contrasting ideological perspectives on the type and extent of change needed to ‘solve’ the HSD problem. The conceptual framework’s systems analysis of the environment–public health nutrition relationship sets out the food system challenges for HSD. The schema helps account for political realities in policy making and is a key link to operationalise the framework’s concepts to actions aimed at redesigning food systems. In combination they provide a policy formulation tool to strategically inform policy activities to redesign food systems and promote HSD.
Improving policy coherence for food security and nutrition in South Africa: a qualitative policy analysis
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-06-2018
Human Migration through Bottlenecks from Southeast Asia into East Asia during Last Glacial Maximum Revealed by Y Chromosomes
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 31-08-2011
The Health Equity Dimensions of Urban Food Systems
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-04-2007
Is enough attention given to climate change in health service planning? An Australian perspective
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 18-06-2014
DOI: 10.3402/GHA.V7.23903
Emerging threats to public health from regional trade agreements
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2013
How do actors with asymmetrical power assert authority in policy agenda-setting? A study of authority claims by health actors in trade policy
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2019
DOI: 10.1016/J.SOCSCIMED.2019.112430
Abstract: How health advocates and industry actors attempt to assert their authority as a strategy of influence in policymaking remains underexplored in the health governance literature. Greater exploration of the kinds of authority sources used by health actors vis-à-vis market actors and the role ideational factors may play in shaping access to these sources provides insight into advocates' efforts to exert influence in policy forums. Using the trade domain in Australia as a case study of the way in which the commercial determinants of health operate, we examined the different ways in which health, public interest and market actors assert their authority. Drawing on a political science typology of authority, we analysed 87 submissions to the Australian government during the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. We identify four types of authority claims institutional authority, derived from holding a position of influence within another established institution legal authority through appeals to legal agreements and precedents networked authority through cross-referencing between actors, and expert authority through use of evidence. Combining these claims with a framing analysis, we found that these bases of authority were invoked differently by actors who shared the dominant neoliberal ideology in contrast to those actors that shared a public interest discourse. In particular, market actors were much less likely to rely on external sources of authority, while health and public interest actors were more likely to appeal to networked and expert authority. We argue that actors who share strong ideational alignment with the dominant policy discourse appear less reliant on other sources of authority. Implications of this analysis include the need for greater attention to the different strategies and ideas used by industry and public health organisations in trade policy agenda-setting for health, which ultimately enable or constrain the advancement of health on government agendas.
Short sleep and obesity in a large national cohort of Thai adults
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 2012
Y-Chromosome Analysis in Individuals Bearing the Basarab Name of the First Dynasty of Wallachian Kings
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 25-07-2012
The how: a message for the UN high-level meeting on NCDs
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2018
Afghanistan's Ethnic Groups Share a Y-Chromosomal Heritage Structured by Historical Events
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 28-03-0055
How does policy framing enable or constrain inclusion of social determinants of health and health equity on trade policy agendas?
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 20-08-2020
Processed foods and the nutrition transition: evidence from Asia
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 15-04-2014
DOI: 10.1111/OBR.12174
Abstract: This paper elucidates the role of processed foods and beverages in the 'nutrition transition' underway in Asia. Processed foods tend to be high in nutrients associated with obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases: refined sugar, salt, saturated and trans-fats. This paper identifies the most significant 'product vectors' for these nutrients and describes changes in their consumption in a selection of Asian countries. Sugar, salt and fat consumption from processed foods has plateaued in high-income countries, but has rapidly increased in the lower-middle and upper-middle-income countries. Relative to sugar and salt, fat consumption in the upper-middle- and lower-middle-income countries is converging most rapidly with that of high-income countries. Carbonated soft drinks, baked goods, and oils and fats are the most significant vectors for sugar, salt and fat respectively. At the regional level there appears to be convergence in consumption patterns of processed foods, but country-level ergences including high levels of consumption of oils and fats in Malaysia, and soft drinks in the Philippines and Thailand. This analysis suggests that more action is needed by policy-makers to prevent or mitigate processed food consumption. Comprehensive policy and regulatory approaches are most likely to be effective in achieving these goals.
The importance of government policies in reducing employment related health inequalities
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 21-06-2010
DOI: 10.1136/BMJ.C2154
Toxic trade: the impact of preferential trade agreements on alcohol imports from Australia in partner countries
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 14-01-2020
DOI: 10.1111/ADD.14925
Abstract: Trade liberalization is hypothesized to increase the availability of imported alcoholic beverages in importing countries. This study provides the first longitudinal analysis of the impact of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on alcohol imports. Panel data comprising alcohol‐product ( n = 15) by importing country ( n = 16) observations from 1988 to 2016 constructed from global databases. The relationship between PTA status, tariff level and alcohol imports were assessed using a log‐linear model. Unobserved heterogeneity was addressed through a combination of differencing and product‐year fixed‐effects. Australia and its 16 free trade partners (PTA year in parentheses), classified by low [ 50%: Brunei (2010), Cambodia (2010), Indonesia (2010), Malaysia (2010, 2013), Myanmar (2010), Thailand (2003, 2010) and Vietnam (2010)] and high ( 50%: Chile (2009), China (2015), Japan (2015), Korea (2014), Laos (2010), New Zealand (1983, 2010), Philippines (2010), Singapore (2003, 2010) and United States (2005)] percentage of alcohol consumers in the population. Independent variables were the existence of a PTA with Australia and tariff (border tax) rate on Australian products. Outcomes were (log) Australian imports and a binary indicator of any imports from Australia. Introducing a PTA has been associated with a statistically significant increase in the share of Australian alcoholic beverage imports in its partner country's total alcoholic beverage import supply, mainly from trade in new alcoholic beverage categories (0.067, P 0.05). Tariff rate reductions have been associated with increased imports in both low and high consumption country groups however, the effect has been larger in low consumption countries (−0.189, P 0.01 compared with −0.016, P 0.05). The impact of PTA adoption was significant in low consumption countries only (1.141, P 0.05). Preferential trade agreements involving Australia have been positively associated with alcohol imports from Australia in countries with low rates of alcohol consumption, due primarily to trade in new products.
Who eats four or more servings of fruit and vegetables per day? Multivariate classification tree analysis of data from the 1998 Survey of Lifestyle, Attitudes and Nutrition in the Republic of Ireland
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 04-2005
DOI: 10.1079/PHN2004670
Abstract: To identify, using the novel application of multivariate classification trees, the socio-economic, sociodemographic and health-related lifestyle behaviour profile of adults who comply with the recommended 4 or more servings per day of fruit and vegetables. Cross-sectional 1998 Survey of Lifestyle, Attitudes and Nutrition. Community-dwelling adults aged 18 years and over on the Republic of Ireland electoral register. Six thousand five hundred and thirty-nine (response rate 62%) adults responded to a self-administered postal questionnaire, including a semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire. The most important determining factor of compliance with the fruit and vegetable dietary recommendations was gender. A complex constellation of sociodemographic and socio-economic factors emerged for males whereas the important predictors of 4 or more servings of fruit and vegetable consumption among females were strongly socio-economic in nature. A separate algorithm was run to investigate the importance of health-related lifestyle and other dietary factors on compliance with the fruit and vegetable recommendations. Following an initial split on compliance with dairy recommendations, a combination of non-dietary behaviours showed a consistent pattern of healthier options more likely to lead to compliance with fruit and vegetable recommendations. There did, however, appear to be a compensatory element between the variables, particularly around smoking, suggesting the non-existence of an exclusive lifestyle for health risk. Material and structural influences matter very much for females in respect to compliance with fruit and vegetable recommendations. For males, while these factors are important they appear to be mediated through other more socially contextual-type factors. Recognition of the role that each of these factors plays in influencing dietary habits of men and women has implications for the manner in which dietary strategies and policies are developed and implemented.
Parallel Evolution of Genes and Languages in the Caucasus Region
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 13-05-2011
Rights, Knowledge, and Governance for Improved Health Equity in Urban Settings
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-09-2011
Defining and conceptualising the commercial determinants of health
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2023
Opportunities and challenges in developing a whole-of-government national food and nutrition policy: lessons from Australia’s National Food Plan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 15-06-2015
DOI: 10.1017/S1368980015001834
Abstract: The present article tracks the development of the Australian National Food Plan as a ‘whole of government’ food policy that aimed to integrate elements of nutrition and sustainability alongside economic objectives. The article uses policy analysis to explore the processes of consultation and stakeholder involvement in the development of the National Food Plan, focusing on actors from the sectors of industry, civil society and government. Existing documentation and submissions to the Plan were used as data sources. Models of health policy analysis and policy streams were employed to analyse policy development processes. Australia. Australian food policy stakeholders. The development of the Plan was influenced by powerful industry groups and stakeholder engagement by the lead ministry favoured the involvement of actors representing the food and agriculture industries. Public health nutrition and civil society relied on traditional methods of policy influence, and the public health nutrition movement failed to develop a unified cross-sector alliance, while the private sector engaged in different ways and presented a united front. The National Food Plan failed to deliver an integrated food policy for Australia. Nutrition and sustainability were effectively sidelined due to the focus on global food production and positioning Australia as a food ‘superpower’ that could take advantage of the anticipated ‘dining boom’ as incomes rose in the Asia-Pacific region. New forms of industry influence are emerging in the food policy arena and public health nutrition will need to adopt new approaches to influencing public policy.
Food poverty and health among schoolchildren in Ireland: findings from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 04-2007
DOI: 10.1017/S1368980007226072
Abstract: To investigate the relationships between food poverty and food consumption, health and life satisfaction among schoolchildren. Analysis of the 2002 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study, a cross-sectional survey that employs a self-completion questionnaire in a nationally representative random s le of school classrooms in the Republic of Ireland. A total of 8424 schoolchildren (aged 10–17 years) from 176 schools, with an 83% response rate from children. Food poverty was found to be similarly distributed among the three social classes (15.3% in the lower social classes, 15.9% in the middle social classes and 14.8% in the higher social classes). It was also found that schoolchildren reporting food poverty are less likely to eat fruits, vegetables and brown bread, odds ratio (OR) from 0.66 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.45–0.87) to 0.81 (95% CI 0.63–0.99) more likely to eat crisps, fried potatoes and hamburgers, OR from 1.20 (95% CI 1.00–1.40) to 1.62 (95% CI 1.39–1.85) and more likely to miss breakfast on weekdays, OR from 1.29 (95% CI 0.33–1.59) to 1.72 (95% CI 1.50–1.95). The risk of somatic and mental symptoms is also increased, OR from 1.48 (95% CI 1.18–1.78) to 2.57 (95% CI 2.33–2.81) as are negative health perceptions, OR from 0.63 (95% CI 0.43–0.83) to 0.52 (95% CI 0.28–0.76) and measures of life dissatisfaction, OR from 1.88 (95% CI 1.64–2.12) to 2.25 (95% CI 2.05–2.45). Similar results were found for life dissatisfaction in an international comparison of 32 countries. All analyses were adjusted for age and social class. Food poverty in schoolchildren is not restricted to those from lower social class families, is associated with a substantial risk to physical and mental health and well-being, and requires the increased attention of policy makers and practitioners.
Alcohol consumption patterns in Thailand and their relationship with non-communicable disease
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-2015
What doctors should know about the Trans‐Pacific Partnership Agreement
Publisher: AMPCo
Date: 09-02-2015
DOI: 10.5694/MJA14.01714
Y-Chromosome and mtDNA Genetics Reveal Significant Contrasts in Affinities of Modern Middle Eastern Populations with European and African Populations
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 30-01-2013
The planetary health equity hothouse: A research agenda for positive change
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2023
Social innovation for the promotion of health equity
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 09-2015
Abstract: The role of social innovations in transforming the lives of in iduals and communities has been a source of popular attention in recent years. This article systematically reviews the available evidence of the relationship between social innovation and its promotion of health equity. Guided by Fair Foundations: The VicHealth framework for health equity and examining four types of social innovation--social movements, service-related social innovations, social enterprise and digital social innovations--we find a growing literature on social innovation activities, but inconsistent evaluative evidence of their impacts on health equities, particularly at the socio-economic, political and cultural level of the framework. Distinctive characteristics of social innovations related to the promotion of health equity include the mobilization of latent or unrealised value through new combinations of (social, cultural and material) resources growing bridging social capital and purposeful approaches to linking in idual knowledge and experience to institutional change. These have implications for health promotion practice and for research about social innovation and health equity.
Reporting of lifetime fractures: Methodological considerations and results from the Thai Cohort Study
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 2012
The nexus between international trade, food systems, malnutrition and climate change
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 13-01-2020
Globalization and Health
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 07-05-2009
Fish, human health and marine ecosystem health: policies in collision
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 02-08-2008
DOI: 10.1093/IJE/DYN157
Abstract: Health recommendations advocating increased fish consumption need to be placed in the context of the potential collapse of global marine capture fisheries. Literature overview. In economically developed countries, official healthy eating advice is to eat more fish, particularly that rich in omega-3 oils. In many less economically developed countries, fish is a key human health asset, contributing >20% of animal protein intake for 2.6 billion people. Marine ecologists predict on current trends that fish stocks are set to collapse in 40 years, and propose increased restrictions on fishing, including no-take zones, in order to restore marine ecosystem health. Production of fishmeal for aquaculture and other non-food uses (22 MT in 2003) appears to be unsustainable. Differences in fish consumption probably contribute to within-country and international health inequalities. Such inequalities are likely to increase if fish stocks continue to decline, while increasing demand for fish will accelerate declines in fish stocks and the health of marine ecosystems. Urgent national and international action is necessary to address the tensions arising from increasing human demand for fish and seafood, and rapidly declining marine ecosystem health.
Deindustrialising economies, plant closures and affected communities: Identifying potential pathways to health inequities
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 15-12-2022
DOI: 10.1002/HPJA.564
Abstract: Deindustrialisation and transitions from traditional manufacturing to new technologies and service industries in many high‐income countries including Australia has resulted in rising employment insecurity, unemployment and increased income and health inequities. In this paper, we explore potential impacts of an automotive plant closure on health in a disadvantaged area of South Australia. Our aim was to examine how prevailing factors affecting social and health inequity might be further affected following the plant closure and to identify levers for potential policy responses. In workshop discussions with 28 policy and 14 community stakeholders through an iterative process participants discussed how existing factors contributing to community social and health inequity might be worsened (or remediated) by the looming economic shock from the plant closure. We identified eight key themes highlighted in the workshops. In particular local economic investment, availability of job opportunities, and appropriate training were identified as key factors influencing in idual financial security, which was in turn linked to social and health impacts. The pathways mapped between the plant closure and social and health equity impacts highlighted differential potential impacts on in iduals and the community, and identified policy levers to reduce adverse health outcomes resulting from economic shocks such as the closure of a major employer. The study highlighted a broad range of intersecting factors affecting the health of the local community that policy responses to the plant closure needed to address to promote health and health equity. This included novel factors identified by community members, reinforcing the importance of including community perspectives when constructing policy responses.
Trade and investment liberalization, food systems change and highly processed food consumption: a natural experiment contrasting the soft-drink markets of Peru and Bolivia
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-06-2016
Addressing inequities in healthy eating
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 09-2015
Abstract: What, when, where and how much people eat is influenced by a complex mix of factors at societal, community and in idual levels. These influences operate both directly through the food system and indirectly through political, economic, social and cultural pathways that cause social stratification and influence the quality of conditions in which people live their lives. These factors are the social determinants of inequities in healthy eating. This paper provides an overview of the current evidence base for addressing these determinants and for the promotion of equity in healthy eating.
Shaping the discourse: What has the food industry been lobbying for in the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement and what are the implications for dietary health?
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-02-2016
Sharing and Specificity of Co-expression Networks across 35 Human Tissues
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 13-05-2015
Urban health inequities and the added pressure of climate change: An action-oriented research agenda
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 23-08-2011
Natural and Manmade Disasters and Mental Health
Publisher: American Medical Association (AMA)
Date: 05-12-2007
Fashion consciousness as a social influence on lifestyle behaviour in young Irish adults
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 06-1997
Dieting patterns and related lifestyles of school-aged children in the Republic of Ireland
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 06-2002
DOI: 10.1079/PHN2001273
Abstract: The aim of this study was to identify differences in food habits and lifestyle behaviours by dieting status among young people in Ireland. Cross-sectional survey. Participants responded to a self-completion questionnaire designed by researchers on the World Health Organization's collaborative study – Health Behaviour in School Aged Children. Pupils were selected by school and classroom and the s le was stratified to be representative of the geographical distribution of school students in Ireland. Data were collected by teachers from school pupils in their classrooms. Data were collected from 187 schools which included 8497 pupils (51% girls) aged 9–17 years. While a minority of pupils (12% of girls, 4% of boys) reported that they were on a diet to lose weight, a substantial proportion (28% of girls, 18% of boys) said that they should be on a diet. Dieters reported consuming unhealthy foods less frequently than non-dieters, but did not report an increased consumption of fruit and vegetables. Rather, some categories of dieters reported higher levels of coffee and tobacco use and lower exercise levels than non-dieters. The results could indicate substitution of unhealthy foods by other unhealthy behaviours as opposed to an increased consumption of healthier foodstuffs, and suggest that both smoking and exercise need to be addressed alongside nutrition in youth health promotion.
Social diversity of Irish adults nutritional intake
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 24-06-2003
Digital Infrastructure as a Determinant of Health Equity: An Australian Case Study of the Implementation of the National Broadband Network
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 19-11-2034
Explaining patterns of convenience food consumption
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 18-10-2013
Interaction between Education and Household Wealth on the Risk of Obesity in Women in Egypt
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 27-06-2012
Learning from the Climate Change Debate to Avoid Polarisation on Negative Emissions
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 25-07-2020
Punching above their weight: a network to understand broader determinants of increasing life expectancy
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 13-08-2018
Linking agricultural policies with obesity and noncommunicable diseases: A new perspective for a globalising world
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2012
COP27: The Prospects and Challenges for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
Publisher: Maad Rayan Publishing Company
Date: 05-11-2022
Abstract: In line with the global trend, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been growing vulnerable to the direct and indirect health effects of climate change including death tolls due to climatological disasters and diseases sensitive to climate change since the industrial revolution. Regarding the limited capacity of MENA countries to adapt and respond to these effects, and also after relative failures of the previous negotiation in Glasgow, in the upcoming COP27 in Egypt, the heads of the region’s parties are determined to take advantage of the opportunity to host MENA to mitigate and prevent the worst effects of climate change. This would be achieved through mobilizing international partners to support climate resilience, a major economic transformation, and put health policy and management in a strategic position to contribute to thinking and action on these pressing matters, at least to avoid or minimize the future adverse consequences.
Integrating climate change, food prices and population health
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2013
Development of a Trypanosoma cruzi strain typing assay using MS2 peptide spectral libraries (Tc-STAMS2)
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 02-04-2018
Managing the health effects of climate change
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2009
Review Article: Freedom to Lead a Life We Have Reason to Value? A Spotlight on Health Inequity in the Asia Pacific Region
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 03-2011
Abstract: The Asia Pacific region is home to more than 60% of the world’s population. Life expectancy at birth differs between countries by as much as 27 years. This article suggests that asymmetric economic growth, unplanned urbanization, marked environmental change, unequal improvements in daily living conditions, and the unequal distribution and access to quality health care have contributed to health inequities in the Asia Pacific region. Contextually specific evidence and action are needed. This requires ongoing monitoring of health inequities and systematic evaluation of societal changes and their impact on health inequities. It requires better understanding of how to translate theoretical and empirical demonstrations of the social and environmental impact on health inequities into evidence-informed policies and programs, in erse geopolitical, socioeconomic, and sociocultural contexts across the Asia Pacific region and the range of associated complex policy processes. A spotlight is needed on health inequities and their causes else the status quo will persist.
Body mass index, physical activity, and fracture among young adults: Longitudinal results from the thai cohort study
Publisher: Japan Epidemiological Association
Date: 2013
Smart food policies for obesity prevention
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2015
Policy coherence, health and the sustainable development goals: a health impact assessment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 27-04-2016
Disparities in food habits in Europe: systematic review of educational and occupational differences in the intake of fat
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 10-2003
DOI: 10.1046/J.1365-277X.2003.00466.X
Abstract: A higher socio-economic level is associated with healthier dietary habits. Nevertheless, socio-economic differences in the intake of fat have not consistently been reported in Europe. The objective of our study was to systematically assess differences in total fat (TF) intake and saturated fat (SF) intake across social groups. Representative s les from nine European countries were used to perform a meta-analysis of surveys between 1985-1999, including both published and nonpublished results. Because important heterogeneity was found and the estimates for TF from Spain and Estonia were different from all others, we calculated the differences in intake excluding these two countries. We found a lower TF intake in the highest (versus the lowest) occupational level both for men (difference: -1.1% of total energy intake 95% CI: -1.3 to -0.8%) and women (difference: -0.9% 95% CI: -1.2 to -0.6%) when Estonia and Spain were excluded. European surveys indicate that people in the lowest category of occupation consume more fat and SF than people in the highest category.
Timing of urbanisation and cardiovascular risks in thailand: Evidence from 51 936 members of the thai cohort study, 2005-2009
Publisher: Japan Epidemiological Association
Date: 2014
Towards healthy and sustainable food consumption: an Australian case study
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 13-06-2013
DOI: 10.1017/S1368980013001523
Abstract: To articulate a healthy and sustainable (H& S) diet outline key health and environmental sustainability principles that can be applied in the selection of foods for inclusion in such a diet and describe a methodology with which to assess the availability and affordability of a H& S food basket. We synthesized publically available evidence on the environmental impact of different foods from academic, government, industry and non-government sources and constructed a hypothetical H& S equivalent of the typical Australian diet. Based on this, we constructed a weekly H& S food basket for a household of two adults and two children. Australia. Australian populations. The H& S diet is based on three overarching principles: (i) any food that is consumed above a person's energy requirement represents an avoidable environmental burden in the form of greenhouse gas emissions, use of natural resources and pressure on bio ersity (ii) reducing the consumption of discretionary food choices, which are energy-dense and highly processed and packaged, reduces both the risk of dietary imbalances and the use of environmental resources and (iii) a diet comprising less animal- and more plant-derived foods delivers both health and ecological benefits. We have focused on the articulation of a H& S diet not to facilitate ‘policy drift’ to focus on in idual dietary choice, but rather to provide evidence to extend dietary guideline recommendations so as to integrate environmental considerations within the scope of food and health policy advice in Australia and elsewhere.
Protocol to monitor trade agreement food-related aspects: the Fiji case study
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 26-04-2017
Abstract: Despite the growing rates of obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases, globally, public health attention has only relatively recently turned to the links between trade agreements and the nutritional risks associated with it. Specific trade agreements appear to have played an influential role in the volume and types of foods entering different countries, yet there is currently no systematic and objective monitoring of trade agreements for their impacts on food environments. Recently, INFORMAS was set up to monitor and benchmark food environments, government policies and private sector actions within countries and globally. One of its projects/modules focuses on trade policy and in particular the food-related aspects of trade agreements. This paper describes the INFORMAS trade protocol, an approach to collecting food-related information about four domains of trade: trade in goods trade in services and foreign direct investment domestic supports, and policy space. Specifically, the protocol is tested in Fiji. The development and testing of this protocol in Fiji represents the first effort to set out a framework and process for objectively monitoring trade agreements and their impacts on national food supply and the wider food environment. It has shown that entry into WTO trade agreements contributed to the nutrition transition in Fiji through the increased availability of imported foods with varying nutritional quality. We observed an increase in imports of both healthy and less healthy foods. The application of the monitoring protocol also highlights challenges for data collection associated with each trade domain that should be considered for future data collection and analysis in other low and middle income countries.
The impact of drought on the association between food security and mental health in a nationally representative Australian sample
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 24-10-2014
If you don't know how can you plan? Considering the health impacts of climate change in urban planning in Australia
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2015
Shaping cities for health: complexity and the planning of urban environments in the 21st century
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2012
Inter-sectoral action to support healthy and environmentally sustainable food behaviours: a study of sectoral knowledge, governance and implementation opportunities
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 08-2017
Impacts of Climate Change on Inequities in Child Health
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 03-12-2014
Politics, policies and processes
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 12-2017
DOI: 10.1136/BMJOPEN-2017-017772
Abstract: The development and implementation of multisectoral policy to improve health and reduce health inequities has been slow and uneven. Evidence is largely focused on the facts of health inequities rather than understanding the political and policy processes. This 5-year funded programme of research investigates how these processes could function more effectively to improve equitable population health. The programme of work is organised in four work packages using four themes (macroeconomics and infrastructure, land use and urban environments, health systems and racism) related to the structural drivers shaping the distribution of power, money and resources and daily living conditions. Policy case studies will use publicly available documents (policy documents, published evaluations, media coverage) and interviews with informants (policy-makers, former politicians, civil society, private sector) (~25 per case). NVIVO software will be used to analyse the documents to see how ‘social and health equity’ is included and conceptualised. The interview data will include qualitative descriptive and theory-driven critical discourse analysis. Our quantitative methodological work assessing the impact of public policy on health equity is experimental that is in its infancy but promises to provide the type of evidence demanded by policy-makers. Our programme is recognising the inherently political nature of the uptake, formulation and implementation of policy. The early stages of our work indicate its feasibility. Our work is aided by a Critical Policy Reference Group. Multiple ethics approvals have been obtained with the foundation approval from the Social and Behavioural Ethics Committee, Flinders University (Project No: 6786). The theoretical, methodological and policy engagement processes established will provide improved evidence for policy-makers who wish to reduce health inequities and inform a new generation of policy savvy knowledge on social determinants.
Global trends and patterns of commercial milk-based formula sales: is an unprecedented infant and young child feeding transition underway?
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 23-05-2016
DOI: 10.1017/S1368980016001117
Abstract: The marketing of infant/child milk-based formulas (MF) contributes to suboptimal breast-feeding and adversely affects child and maternal health outcomes globally. However, little is known about recent changes in MF markets. The present study describes contemporary trends and patterns of MF sales at the global, regional and country levels. Descriptive statistics of trends and patterns in MF sales volume per infant/child for the years 2008–2013 and projections to 2018, using industry-sourced data. Eighty countries categorized by country income bracket, for developing countries by region, and in countries with the largest infant/child populations. MF categories included total (for ages 0–36 months), infant (0–6 months), follow-up (7–12 months), toddler (13–36 months) and special (0–6 months). In 2008–2013 world total MF sales grew by 40·8 % from 5·5 to 7·8 kg per infant/child/year, a figure predicted to increase to 10·8 kg by 2018. Growth was most rapid in East Asia particularly in China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam and was led by the infant and follow-up formula categories. Sales volume per infant/child was positively associated with country income level although with wide variability between countries. A global infant and young child feeding (IYCF) transition towards diets higher in MF is underway and is expected to continue apace. The observed increase in MF sales raises serious concern for global child and maternal health, particularly in East Asia, and calls into question the efficacy of current regulatory regimes designed to protect and promote optimal IYCF. The observed changes have not been captured by existing IYCF monitoring systems.
Extending the paradigm: A policy framework for healthy and equitable eating (HE2)
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 20-08-2018
DOI: 10.1017/S1368980018002082
Abstract: The current short communication aimed to provide a new conceptualisation of the policy drivers of inequities in healthy eating and to make a call to action to begin populating this framework with evidence of actions that can be taken to reduce the inequities in healthy eating. The Healthy and Equitable Eating (HE 2 ) Framework derives from a systems-based analytical approach involving expert workshops. Australia. Academics, government officials and non-government organisations in Australia. The HE 2 Framework extends previous conceptualisations of policy responses to healthy eating to include the social determinants of healthy eating and its social distribution, encompassing policy areas including housing, social protection, employment, education, transport, urban planning, plus the food system and environment. As the burden of non-communicable diseases continues to grow globally, it is important that governments, practitioners and researchers focus attention on the development and implementation of policies beyond the food system and environment that can address the social determinants of inequities in healthy eating.
A fair go for health? Not at the moment
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2014
Aboriginal Australian mitochondrial genome variation – an increased understanding of population antiquity and diversity
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 13-03-2017
DOI: 10.1038/SREP43041
Abstract: Aboriginal Australians represent one of the oldest continuous cultures outside Africa, with evidence indicating that their ancestors arrived in the ancient landmass of Sahul (present-day New Guinea and Australia) ~55 thousand years ago. Genetic studies, though limited, have demonstrated both the uniqueness and antiquity of Aboriginal Australian genomes. We have further resolved known Aboriginal Australian mitochondrial haplogroups and discovered novel indigenous lineages by sequencing the mitogenomes of 127 contemporary Aboriginal Australians. In particular, the more common haplogroups observed in our dataset included M42a, M42c, S, P5 and P12, followed by rarer haplogroups M15, M16, N13, O, P3, P6 and P8. We propose some major phylogenetic rearrangements, such as in haplogroup P where we delinked P4a and P4b and redefined them as P4 (New Guinean) and P11 (Australian), respectively. Haplogroup P2b was identified as a novel clade potentially restricted to Torres Strait Islanders. Nearly all Aboriginal Australian mitochondrial haplogroups detected appear to be ancient, with no evidence of later introgression during the Holocene. Our findings greatly increase knowledge about the geographic distribution and phylogenetic structure of mitochondrial lineages that have survived in contemporary descendants of Australia’s first settlers.
Cohort profile: The Thai cohort of 87 134 Open University students
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 02-10-2008
DOI: 10.1093/IJE/DYM161
Ancient DNA Reveals Key Stages in the Formation of Central European Mitochondrial Genetic Diversity
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 11-10-2013
Abstract: To investigate the genetic origins of modern Europeans, Brandt et al. (p. 257 ) examined ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and were able to identify genetic differences in 364 Central Europeans spanning the early Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age. Observed changes in mitochondrial haplotypes corresponded with hypothesized human migration across Eurasia and revealed the complexity of the demographic changes and evidence of a Late Neolithic origin for the European mtDNA gene pool. This transect through time reveals four key population events associated with well-known archaeological cultures, which involved genetic influx into Central Europe from various directions at various times.
Using systems science to understand the determinants of inequities in healthy eating
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 30-11-2017
A multi-layered governance framework for incorporating social science insights into adapting to the health impacts of climate change
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 10-09-2013
Addressing the Social and Environmental Determinants of Urban Health Equity: Evidence for Action and a Research Agenda
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 30-08-2011
City deals and health equity in Sydney, Australia
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2022
DOI: 10.1016/J.HEALTHPLACE.2021.102711
Abstract: 'City Deals' are new governance instruments for urban development. Vast evidence exists on the relationship between urban factors and health equity, but little research applies a health equity lens to urban policy-making. This paper does precisely that for the Western Sydney City Deal (WSCD) in Australia. We conducted a critical discourse analysis of publicly available documents and interviews with the WSCD's main architects, applying insights from relevant theories. We find 'pro-growth' discourse to encourage economic investment dominates any references to disadvantage. Interviewees maintained the WSCDs fundamental purpose is to rebalance urban investment toward the historically disadvantaged West. However, the WSCD makes limited reference to health and none to equity. Institutionalised governance practices that favour private investments in infrastructure remain the dominant force behind the WSCD. We document how a shift to 'place-based' infrastructure has promise for equity but struggles to overcome institutionalised approaches to urban investments.
Recombination Gives a New Insight in the Effective Population Size and the History of the Old World Human Populations
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 09-2011
Abstract: The information left by recombination in our genomes can be used to make inferences on our recent evolutionary history. Specifically, the number of past recombination events in a population s le is a function of its effective population size (Ne). We have applied a method, Identifying Recombination in Sequences (IRiS), to detect specific past recombination events in 30 Old World populations to infer their Ne. We have found that sub-Saharan African populations have an Ne that is approximately four times greater than those of non-African populations and that outside of Africa, South Asian populations had the largest Ne. We also observe that the patterns of recombinational ersity of these populations correlate with distance out of Africa if that distance is measured along a path crossing South Arabia. No such correlation is found through a Sinai route, suggesting that anatomically modern humans first left Africa through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait rather than through present Egypt.
Climate change, food insecurity and chronic diseases: Sustainable and healthy policy opportunities for Australia
Publisher: The Sax Institute
Date: 2010
DOI: 10.1071/NB10019
Closing the gap in a generation: health equity through action on the social determinants of health
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2008
The cost of a healthy and sustainable diet – who can afford it?
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2014
Abstract: Climate change is affecting the ability of food systems to provide sufficient nutritious and affordable foods at all times. Healthy and sustainable (H&S) food choices are important contributions to health and climate change policy efforts. This paper presents empirical data on the affordability of a food basket that incorporates principles of health and sustainability across different food sub-systems, socioeconomic neighbourhoods and household income levels in Greater Western Sydney, Australia. A basket survey was used to investigate the cost of both a typical basket of food and a hypothetical H&S basket. The price of foods in the two baskets was recorded in five neighbourhoods, and the affordability of the baskets was determined across household income quintiles. The cost of the H&S basket was more than the typical basket in all five socioeconomic neighbourhoods, with most disadvantaged neighbourhood spending proportionately more (30%) to buy the H&S basket. Within household income levels, the greatest inequity was found in the middle income neighbourhood, showing that households in the lowest income quintile would have to spend up to 48% of their weekly income to buy the H&S basket, while households in the highest income quintile would have to spend significantly less of their weekly income (9%). The most disadvantaged groups in the region, both at the neighbourhood and household level, experience the greatest inequality in affordability of the H&S diet. The results highlight the current inequity in food choice in the region and the underlying social issues of cost and affordability of H&S foods.
Still serving hot soup? Two hundred years of a charitable food sector in Australia: a narrative review
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2015
Abstract: Despite the importance of the charitable food sector for a proportion of the Australian population, there is uncertainty about its present and future contributions to wellbeing. This paper describes its nature and examines its scope for improving health and food security. The review, using systematic methods for public health research, identified peer-reviewed and grey literature relevant to Australian charitable food programs (2002 to 2012). Seventy publications met the criteria and informed this paper. The sector includes food banks, more than 3,000 community agencies and 800 school breakfast programs. It provides food for up to two million people annually. The scope extends beyond emergency food relief and includes case management, advocacy and other support. Weaknesses include a food supply that is sub-optimal, resource limitations and lack of evidence to evaluate or support their work towards food security. The sector supports people experiencing disadvantage and involves multiple organisations, working in a variety of settings, to provide food for up to 8% of the population. The limits on the sector's capacity to address food insecurity by itself must be acknowledged so that civil society, government and the food industry can support sufficient, nutritious and affordable food for all.
Food, fuel, and health
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2008
Socio-demographic predictors of self-rated health in the Republic of Ireland: findings from the National Survey on Lifestyle, Attitudes and Nutrition, SLAN
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2003
DOI: 10.1016/S0277-9536(02)00371-4
Abstract: Though Ireland continues to have a poor health profile compared with other European Union countries, previous research on social variations has been limited. For the first time in the Republic of Ireland, the influence on self-rated health of various socio-demographic indicators was assessed in a multi-variate logistic regression model, separately for men and women. Data were from the first National Survey of Lifestyles, Attitudes and Nutrition, SLAN, conducted by post in a multi-stage, cluster random s le across 26 counties. There were 6539 respondents (45.4% males). Mean self-rated health differed significantly according to age, marital status, tenure, educational status, social class, household size and eligibility for general medical services (GMS), but not according to gender or rurality. There were also differences if residing in a district with low level of affluence, or according to social cluster groupings. There were numerous significant correlations between the nine socio-demographic measures, but the most consistent pattern was between GMS eligibility and the various indicators, for both men and women. In the case of men, whether social class was included in the multi-variate model or not, education status remained predictive in the final model, (OR 2.36 CI 1.35-4.12) as did smoking status (OR 2.11 CI 1.47-3.02). Odds ratio for GMS eligibility was 3.33 (CI 2.61-4.26) attenuated to 1.70 (CI 1.12-2.56) in the final model. For women the pattern was somewhat different. Only GMS status (OR 2.64 CI 1.74-3.99) and level of education (2.25 CI 1.19-4.24) were predictive in the final model. A multi-level analysis showed that area level of affluence was not significantly predictive of self-rated health when in idual level factors were taken into account.
Income-related inequalities in chronic conditions, physical functioning and psychological distress among older people in Australia: Cross-sectional findings from the 45 and up study
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 22-07-2014
Generating political priority for regulatory interventions targeting obesity prevention: an Australian case study
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2017
DOI: 10.1016/J.SOCSCIMED.2017.01.047
Abstract: Effective obesity prevention requires a synergistic mix of population-level interventions including a strong role for government and the regulation of the marketing, labelling, content and pricing of energy-dense foods and beverages. In this paper we adopt the agenda of the Australian Federal Government (AFG) as a case study to understand the factors generating or hindering political priority for such 'regulatory interventions' between 1990 and 2011. Using a theoretically-guided process tracing method we undertook documentary analysis and conducted 27 interviews with a ersity of actors involved in obesity politics. The analysis was structured by a theoretical framework comprising four dimensions: the power of actors involved the ideas the actors deploy to interpret and portray the issue the institutional and political context and issue characteristics. Despite two periods of sustained political attention, political priority for regulatory interventions did not emerge and was hindered by factors from all four dimensions. Within the public health community, limited cohesion among experts and advocacy groups h ered technical responses and collective action efforts. An initial focus on children (child obesity), framing the determinants of obesity as 'obesogenic environments', and the deployment of 'protecting kids', 'industry demonization' and 'economic costs' frames generated political attention. Institutional norms within government effectively selected out regulatory interventions from consideration. The 'productive power' and activities of the food and advertising industries presented formidable barriers, buttressed by a libertarian/neolibertarian rhetoric emphasizing in idual responsibility, a negative view of freedom (as free from 'nanny-state' intervention) and the idea that regulation imposes an unacceptable cost on business. Issue complexity, the absence of a supportive evidence base and a strict 'evidence-based' policy-making approach were used as rationales to defer political priority. Overcoming these challenges may be important to future collective action efforts attempting to generate and sustain political priority for regulatory interventions targeting obesity.
Effect of social variation on the Irish diet
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 11-2002
DOI: 10.1079/PNS2002191
Abstract: Both jurisdictions of Ireland have high rates of chronic degenerative diseases, particularly of the cardiovascular system, and Irish migrants have worse health profiles, often lasting at least two generations. The influence of socio-demographic variation over the life course, and what role diet plays, has not been well researched in epidemiological terms. There is a long history of an unusual Irish diet. Estimated dietary fat intake (% total energy intake) in 1863 was only 9, but had reached 30 in 1948 and 34 in 1999. Conversely, carbohydrate intake has fallen steadily over 150 years. From 1948 onwards household budget survey data illustrate patterns of increasing urbanisation and socio-economic gradients in food availability. The National Survey of Lifestyles, Attitudes and Nutrition, ( n 6539, 622 % response rate) provides clear evidence of inverse social-class gradients in intake of fruit and vegetables and dairy products and in reported patterns of healthy eating. Median carbohydrate and vitamin C levels are higher among social classes 1-2 and mean saturated fat intake is lower. International comparisons indicate a continuing, if narrowing, north-south gradient across Europe. Data from the Boston-Ireland study suggest a crossover in both dietary intake patterns and risk of heart disease in Ireland and the USA in the 1970s. Contemporary comparative data of middle-aged Irish and American women demonstrate patterns of diet intake and inactivity consistent with the modern epidemic of obesity and non-insulin-dependent diabetes. Thus, dietary variations within and between countries and over time are consistent with chronic disease patterns in contemporary Ireland.
Related Organisations
University College London
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
University Of Strathclyde
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
University Of Warwick
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
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Australian Laureate Fellowships - Grant ID: FL210100044
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End Date: 03-2027
Amount: $3,465,000.00
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View Funded ActivityLinkage Projects - Grant ID: LP200100100
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End Date: 08-2025
Amount: $531,764.00
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View Funded ActivityARC Future Fellowships - Grant ID: FT0991462
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End Date: 12-2015
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View Funded ActivityLinkage Projects - Grant ID: LP120100168
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View Funded ActivityDiscovery Projects - Grant ID: DP190100576
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End Date: 12-2024
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Amount: $307,448.00
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