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Framing health taxes: learning from low- and middle-income countries

Health taxes are effective policy instruments to save lives, raise government revenues and improve equity. Health taxes, however, directly conflict with commercial actors’ interests. Both pro-tax health advocates and anti-tax industry representatives seek to frame health tax policy. Yet, little is k...

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Autores principales: Lwin, Kaung Suu, Koon, Adam D, Rasanathan, Kumanan, Ahsan, Abdillah, Erku, Daniel, Mialon, Melissa, Perez-Leon, Silvana, Singh, Arti, Mirza, Zafar, Zuleta, Mario, Adhikari, Shiva Raj, Acharya, Yubraj, Dao, Son The, Rasheed, Sabrina, Paul, Jeremias, Marten, Robert
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10583086/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37832966
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2023-012955
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author Lwin, Kaung Suu
Koon, Adam D
Rasanathan, Kumanan
Ahsan, Abdillah
Erku, Daniel
Mialon, Melissa
Perez-Leon, Silvana
Singh, Arti
Mirza, Zafar
Zuleta, Mario
Adhikari, Shiva Raj
Acharya, Yubraj
Dao, Son The
Rasheed, Sabrina
Paul, Jeremias
Marten, Robert
author_facet Lwin, Kaung Suu
Koon, Adam D
Rasanathan, Kumanan
Ahsan, Abdillah
Erku, Daniel
Mialon, Melissa
Perez-Leon, Silvana
Singh, Arti
Mirza, Zafar
Zuleta, Mario
Adhikari, Shiva Raj
Acharya, Yubraj
Dao, Son The
Rasheed, Sabrina
Paul, Jeremias
Marten, Robert
author_sort Lwin, Kaung Suu
collection PubMed
description Health taxes are effective policy instruments to save lives, raise government revenues and improve equity. Health taxes, however, directly conflict with commercial actors’ interests. Both pro-tax health advocates and anti-tax industry representatives seek to frame health tax policy. Yet, little is known about which frames resonate in which settings and how framing can most effectively advance or limit policies. To fill this gap, we conducted qualitative research in 2022, including focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, document reviews and media analysis on the political economy of health taxes across eight low-income and middle-income countries. Studies captured multiple actors constructing context-specific frames, often tied to broader economic, health and administrative considerations. Findings suggest that no single frame dominates; in fact, a plurality of different frames exist and shape discourse and policymaking. There was no clear trade-off between health and economic framing of health tax policy proposals, nor a straightforward way to handle concerns around earmarking. Understanding how to best position health taxes can empower health policymakers with more persuasive framings for health taxes and can support them to develop broader coalitions to advance health taxes. These insights can improve efforts to advance health taxes by better appreciating political economy factors and constraining corporate power, ultimately leading to improved population-level health.
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spelling pubmed-105830862023-10-19 Framing health taxes: learning from low- and middle-income countries Lwin, Kaung Suu Koon, Adam D Rasanathan, Kumanan Ahsan, Abdillah Erku, Daniel Mialon, Melissa Perez-Leon, Silvana Singh, Arti Mirza, Zafar Zuleta, Mario Adhikari, Shiva Raj Acharya, Yubraj Dao, Son The Rasheed, Sabrina Paul, Jeremias Marten, Robert BMJ Glob Health Analysis Health taxes are effective policy instruments to save lives, raise government revenues and improve equity. Health taxes, however, directly conflict with commercial actors’ interests. Both pro-tax health advocates and anti-tax industry representatives seek to frame health tax policy. Yet, little is known about which frames resonate in which settings and how framing can most effectively advance or limit policies. To fill this gap, we conducted qualitative research in 2022, including focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, document reviews and media analysis on the political economy of health taxes across eight low-income and middle-income countries. Studies captured multiple actors constructing context-specific frames, often tied to broader economic, health and administrative considerations. Findings suggest that no single frame dominates; in fact, a plurality of different frames exist and shape discourse and policymaking. There was no clear trade-off between health and economic framing of health tax policy proposals, nor a straightforward way to handle concerns around earmarking. Understanding how to best position health taxes can empower health policymakers with more persuasive framings for health taxes and can support them to develop broader coalitions to advance health taxes. These insights can improve efforts to advance health taxes by better appreciating political economy factors and constraining corporate power, ultimately leading to improved population-level health. BMJ Publishing Group 2023-10-13 /pmc/articles/PMC10583086/ /pubmed/37832966 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2023-012955 Text en © World Health Organization 2023. Licensee BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution IGO License (CC BY 3.0 IGO (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/) ), which permits use, distribution,and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In any reproduction of this article there should not be any suggestion that WHO or this article endorse any specific organization or products. The use of the WHO logo is not permitted. This notice should be preserved along with the article’s original URL.
spellingShingle Analysis
Lwin, Kaung Suu
Koon, Adam D
Rasanathan, Kumanan
Ahsan, Abdillah
Erku, Daniel
Mialon, Melissa
Perez-Leon, Silvana
Singh, Arti
Mirza, Zafar
Zuleta, Mario
Adhikari, Shiva Raj
Acharya, Yubraj
Dao, Son The
Rasheed, Sabrina
Paul, Jeremias
Marten, Robert
Framing health taxes: learning from low- and middle-income countries
title Framing health taxes: learning from low- and middle-income countries
title_full Framing health taxes: learning from low- and middle-income countries
title_fullStr Framing health taxes: learning from low- and middle-income countries
title_full_unstemmed Framing health taxes: learning from low- and middle-income countries
title_short Framing health taxes: learning from low- and middle-income countries
title_sort framing health taxes: learning from low- and middle-income countries
topic Analysis
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10583086/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37832966
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2023-012955
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