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E-Cigarettes: A Disruptive Technology? An Analysis of Health Actors’ Positions on E-Cigarette Regulation in Scotland

Concerns have been raised that the divisions emerging within public health in response to electronic cigarettes are weakening tobacco control. This paper employed thematic and network analysis to assess 90 policy consultation submissions and 18 interviews with political actors to examine the extent...

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Autores principales: Weishaar, Heide Beatrix, Ikegwuonu, Theresa, Smith, Katherine E., Buckton, Christina H., Hilton, Shona
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6747168/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31455009
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16173103
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author Weishaar, Heide Beatrix
Ikegwuonu, Theresa
Smith, Katherine E.
Buckton, Christina H.
Hilton, Shona
author_facet Weishaar, Heide Beatrix
Ikegwuonu, Theresa
Smith, Katherine E.
Buckton, Christina H.
Hilton, Shona
author_sort Weishaar, Heide Beatrix
collection PubMed
description Concerns have been raised that the divisions emerging within public health in response to electronic cigarettes are weakening tobacco control. This paper employed thematic and network analysis to assess 90 policy consultation submissions and 18 interviews with political actors to examine the extent of, and basis for, divisions between health-focused actors with regard to the harms and benefits of e-cigarettes and appropriate approaches to regulation in Scotland. The results demonstrated considerable engagement in e-cigarette policy development by health-focused actors and a widely held perception of strong disagreement. They show that actors agreed on substantive policy issues, such as age-of-sale restrictions and, in part, the regulation of advertising. Points of contestation were related to the harms and benefits of e-cigarettes and the regulation of vaping in public places. The topicality, limitations of the evidence base and underlying values may help explain the heightened sense of division. While suggesting that some opportunities for joint advocacy might have been missed, this analysis shows that debates on e-cigarette regulation cast a light upon differences in thinking about appropriate approaches to health policy development within the public health community. Constructive debates on these divisive issues among health-focused actors will be a crucial step toward advancing public health.
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spelling pubmed-67471682019-09-27 E-Cigarettes: A Disruptive Technology? An Analysis of Health Actors’ Positions on E-Cigarette Regulation in Scotland Weishaar, Heide Beatrix Ikegwuonu, Theresa Smith, Katherine E. Buckton, Christina H. Hilton, Shona Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Concerns have been raised that the divisions emerging within public health in response to electronic cigarettes are weakening tobacco control. This paper employed thematic and network analysis to assess 90 policy consultation submissions and 18 interviews with political actors to examine the extent of, and basis for, divisions between health-focused actors with regard to the harms and benefits of e-cigarettes and appropriate approaches to regulation in Scotland. The results demonstrated considerable engagement in e-cigarette policy development by health-focused actors and a widely held perception of strong disagreement. They show that actors agreed on substantive policy issues, such as age-of-sale restrictions and, in part, the regulation of advertising. Points of contestation were related to the harms and benefits of e-cigarettes and the regulation of vaping in public places. The topicality, limitations of the evidence base and underlying values may help explain the heightened sense of division. While suggesting that some opportunities for joint advocacy might have been missed, this analysis shows that debates on e-cigarette regulation cast a light upon differences in thinking about appropriate approaches to health policy development within the public health community. Constructive debates on these divisive issues among health-focused actors will be a crucial step toward advancing public health. MDPI 2019-08-26 2019-09 /pmc/articles/PMC6747168/ /pubmed/31455009 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16173103 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Weishaar, Heide Beatrix
Ikegwuonu, Theresa
Smith, Katherine E.
Buckton, Christina H.
Hilton, Shona
E-Cigarettes: A Disruptive Technology? An Analysis of Health Actors’ Positions on E-Cigarette Regulation in Scotland
title E-Cigarettes: A Disruptive Technology? An Analysis of Health Actors’ Positions on E-Cigarette Regulation in Scotland
title_full E-Cigarettes: A Disruptive Technology? An Analysis of Health Actors’ Positions on E-Cigarette Regulation in Scotland
title_fullStr E-Cigarettes: A Disruptive Technology? An Analysis of Health Actors’ Positions on E-Cigarette Regulation in Scotland
title_full_unstemmed E-Cigarettes: A Disruptive Technology? An Analysis of Health Actors’ Positions on E-Cigarette Regulation in Scotland
title_short E-Cigarettes: A Disruptive Technology? An Analysis of Health Actors’ Positions on E-Cigarette Regulation in Scotland
title_sort e-cigarettes: a disruptive technology? an analysis of health actors’ positions on e-cigarette regulation in scotland
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6747168/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31455009
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16173103
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