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Analysis of the corporate political activity of major food industry actors in Fiji
BACKGROUND: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of mortality in Fiji, a middle-income country in the Pacific. Some food products processed sold and marketed by the food industry are major contributors to the NCD epidemic, and the food industry is widely identified as having strong...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4862126/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27160250 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12992-016-0158-8 |
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author | Mialon, Melissa Swinburn, Boyd Wate, Jillian Tukana, Isimeli Sacks, Gary |
author_facet | Mialon, Melissa Swinburn, Boyd Wate, Jillian Tukana, Isimeli Sacks, Gary |
author_sort | Mialon, Melissa |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of mortality in Fiji, a middle-income country in the Pacific. Some food products processed sold and marketed by the food industry are major contributors to the NCD epidemic, and the food industry is widely identified as having strong economic and political power. However, little research has been undertaken on the attempts by the food industry to influence public health-related policies and programs in its favour. The “corporate political activity” (CPA) of the food industry includes six strategies (information and messaging; financial incentives; constituency building; legal strategies; policy substitution; opposition fragmentation and destabilisation). For this study, we aimed to gain a detailed understanding of the CPA strategies and practices of major food industry actors in Fiji, interpreted through a public health lens. METHODS AND RESULTS: We implemented a systematic approach to monitor the CPA of the food industry in Fiji for three months. It consisted of document analysis of relevant publicly available information. In parallel, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 stakeholders involved in diet- and/or public health-related issues in Fiji. Both components of the study were thematically analysed. We found evidence that the food industry adopted a diverse range of strategies in an attempt to influence public policy in Fiji, with all six CPA strategies identified. Participants identified that there is a substantial risk that the widespread CPA of the food industry could undermine efforts to address NCDs in Fiji. CONCLUSIONS: Despite limited public disclosure of information, such as data related to food industry donations to political parties and lobbying, we were able to identify many CPA practices used by the food industry in Fiji. Greater transparency from the food industry and the government would help strengthen efforts to increase their accountability and support NCD prevention. In other low- and middle-income countries, it is likely that a systematic document analysis approach would also need to be supplemented with key informant interviews to gain insight into this important influence on NCD prevention. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12992-016-0158-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4862126 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-48621262016-05-11 Analysis of the corporate political activity of major food industry actors in Fiji Mialon, Melissa Swinburn, Boyd Wate, Jillian Tukana, Isimeli Sacks, Gary Global Health Research BACKGROUND: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of mortality in Fiji, a middle-income country in the Pacific. Some food products processed sold and marketed by the food industry are major contributors to the NCD epidemic, and the food industry is widely identified as having strong economic and political power. However, little research has been undertaken on the attempts by the food industry to influence public health-related policies and programs in its favour. The “corporate political activity” (CPA) of the food industry includes six strategies (information and messaging; financial incentives; constituency building; legal strategies; policy substitution; opposition fragmentation and destabilisation). For this study, we aimed to gain a detailed understanding of the CPA strategies and practices of major food industry actors in Fiji, interpreted through a public health lens. METHODS AND RESULTS: We implemented a systematic approach to monitor the CPA of the food industry in Fiji for three months. It consisted of document analysis of relevant publicly available information. In parallel, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 stakeholders involved in diet- and/or public health-related issues in Fiji. Both components of the study were thematically analysed. We found evidence that the food industry adopted a diverse range of strategies in an attempt to influence public policy in Fiji, with all six CPA strategies identified. Participants identified that there is a substantial risk that the widespread CPA of the food industry could undermine efforts to address NCDs in Fiji. CONCLUSIONS: Despite limited public disclosure of information, such as data related to food industry donations to political parties and lobbying, we were able to identify many CPA practices used by the food industry in Fiji. Greater transparency from the food industry and the government would help strengthen efforts to increase their accountability and support NCD prevention. In other low- and middle-income countries, it is likely that a systematic document analysis approach would also need to be supplemented with key informant interviews to gain insight into this important influence on NCD prevention. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12992-016-0158-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2016-05-10 /pmc/articles/PMC4862126/ /pubmed/27160250 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12992-016-0158-8 Text en © Mialon et al. 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Mialon, Melissa Swinburn, Boyd Wate, Jillian Tukana, Isimeli Sacks, Gary Analysis of the corporate political activity of major food industry actors in Fiji |
title | Analysis of the corporate political activity of major food industry actors in Fiji |
title_full | Analysis of the corporate political activity of major food industry actors in Fiji |
title_fullStr | Analysis of the corporate political activity of major food industry actors in Fiji |
title_full_unstemmed | Analysis of the corporate political activity of major food industry actors in Fiji |
title_short | Analysis of the corporate political activity of major food industry actors in Fiji |
title_sort | analysis of the corporate political activity of major food industry actors in fiji |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4862126/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27160250 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12992-016-0158-8 |
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