Identifying the factors influencing the development of bilateral investment treaties with health safeguards: a Machine Learning-based link prediction approach.

A network analysis approach, complemented by machine learning (ML) techniques, is applied to analyse the factors influencing Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) at the country level. Using the Electronic Database of Investment Treaties, BITs with health safeguards from 167 countries were charted, resulting in 534 connections with countries as nodes and their BITs as edges. Network analysis found that, on average, a country established BITs with six other nations.

Strengthening the governance of food systems for nutrition in Africa: a political economy analysis of food policy in South Africa and Ghana.

Objective: To examine underlying political economy factors that enable or impede the integration of nutrition considerations into food system governance.

Design: Comparative political economy analysis of data collected through (1) value chain analyses of selected healthy and unhealthy commodities and (2) food system policy analyses, using a theoretical framework focused on power, politics, interests and ideas.

Setting: Ghana and South Africa.

Measuring characteristics of wild and cultivated food environments: a scoping review.

Background: Global food systems are essential to sustain life; however, unhealthy diets are the leading cause of poor health and death worldwide. Natural food environments are a critical source of healthful food such as fresh fruit and vegetables, lean meat and aquatic foods, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and Indigenous food systems. Understanding and monitoring natural food environments is critical to protecting the supply of healthy food, and the land and water it comes from, for current and future generations.

Inhibitors and Supporters of Policy Change in the Regulation of Unhealthy Food Marketing in Australia.

Background: Evidence on the impact of policies that regulate unhealthy food marketing demonstrates a need for a shift from pure industry self-regulation toward statutory regulation. Institutional rules, decision-making procedures, actor practices, and institutional norms influence the regulatory choices made by policy-makers. This study examined institutional processes that sustain, support, or inhibit change in the food marketing regulation in Australia using the three pillars of institutions framework - regulatory, normative, and cultural cognitive pillars.

An NLP-based novel approach for assessing national influence in clause dissemination across bilateral investment treaties.

International investment agreements (IIAs) promote foreign investment. However, they can undermine crucial health programs, creating a dilemma for governments between corporate and public health interests. For this reason, including clauses that safeguard health has become an essential practice in IIAs.

Health policy implications of corporate social responsibility provisions in international investment agreements.

Objective: To analyse and classify inclusions of corporate social responsibility in international investment agreements, especially inclusions with reference to public health.

Method: We extracted the text of international investment agreements containing corporate social responsibility inclusions from the Electronic Database of Investment Treaties. We conducted a documentary analysis of the corporate social responsibility inclusions, and we developed a typology categorizing inclusions based on level of detail and reference to international commitments.

Background commentary on the Researching the Obesogenic Food Environment (ROFE) project.

Objective: The objective of this commentary is to provide an overview of the rationale and objectives of the Researching the Obesogenic Food Environment (ROFE) project that was conducted in Ghana and South Africa.

Design: Narration has been used to describe the main objectives, phases as well as the methods used for the conduct of this project.

Setting: The project described in this commentary was conducted in Khayelitsha and Mount Frere in South Africa and Ahodwo and Ejuratia for Ghana.

Dietary intake of low-income adults in South Africa: ultra-processed food consumption a cause for concern.

Objective: Given the rapidly changing food environment and proliferation of ultra-processed foods (UPF) in South Africa (SA), this study aimed to critically evaluate dietary quality and adequacy of low-income adults using the Nova classification system and WHO and World Cancer Research Fund dietary guidelines.

Design: Secondary household data and 1-d 24-h recalls were analysed from two cross-sectional studies conducted in 2017-2018. Foods consumed were classified according to the Nova classification system.

Fiscal policies and regulations for healthy diets in Sri Lanka: an analysis of the political economy of taxation and traffic light labelling for sugar-sweetened beverages.

Background: Unhealthy dietary patterns significantly contribute to rising non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Sri Lanka. The government has implemented policy measures to promote healthy dietary patterns, including the traffic light labelling (TLL) system for sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) in 2016 and taxation on SSBs in 2017.

Objectives: To analyse how ideas, institutions, and power dynamics influence the formulation and implementation of these two interventions, and to identify strategies for public health actors to advocate for more effective food environment policies in Sri Lanka.

Protecting children from unhealthy food marketing: a comparative policy analysis in Australia, Fiji and Thailand.

Restrictions on marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children is a globally recommended policy measure to improve diets and health. The aim of the analysis was to identify opportunities to enable policy learning and shift beliefs of relevant actors, to engender policy progress on restrictions on marketing of unhealthy foods to children. We drew on the Advocacy Coalition Framework to thematically analyse data from qualitative policy interviews conducted Australia (n = 24), Fiji (n = 10) and Thailand (n = 20).

Lessons for strengthening policymaking for obesity and diet-related noncommunicable disease prevention: A narrative synthesis of policy literature from the Western Pacific Region.

Obesity and diet-related noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) have a profound impact on individuals, households, health care systems, and economies in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs), with the Western Pacific Region experiencing some of the highest impacts. Governments have committed to improving population diets; however, implementation challenges limit effective policy action. We undertook meta-narrative synthesis of the academic literature and used theories of policymaking and implementation to synthesize current knowledge of issues affecting the adoption and implementation of policies to prevent obesity and diet-related NCDs in LMICs in the Western Pacific Region.

Scaling up food pricing policies in the Pacific: a guide to action.

There are calls for governments around the world to adopt pricing policies, including taxes, subsidies and price controls that ensure all people have access to, and can afford, healthy diets. Despite the strong potential of pricing policies to promote healthy diets and to support a post-COVID-19 recovery, there are gaps in evidence with regard to 'how' to design and apply effective food taxes in practice, and countries report challenges in navigating the different policy options.In this practice piece, we examine the global evidence for food taxes with a view to identifying practical lessons for policy design, adoption and implementation, using the Pacific Islands Region as a case study.

Mapping of food environment policies in Zambia: a qualitative document analysis.

Background: The food environment in which people exercise food choices significantly impacts their dietary patterns. Policies that limit the availability, affordability, and access to unhealthy food while increasing that of healthier alternatives help build healthy food environments, which are required to address the double burden of malnutrition. This study aimed to assess the availability of food environment policies in Zambia.

Understanding the Dynamics of More Restrictive Medicines Policy: A Case Study of Codeine Up-Scheduling in Australia.

Background: There has been increasing concern over opioid-related harms across the world. In Australia in 2018, codeine-containing products were up-scheduled from over-the-counter access at pharmacies, to requiring a prescription. The drug regulator's decision to up-schedule was contentious and widely debated, due to the potentially large impact on consumers and healthcare professionals.

Nutrition policy reforms to address the double burden of malnutrition in Zambia: a prospective policy analysis.

The evolution of nutrition patterns in Zambia has resulted in the coexistence of undernutrition and overnutrition in the same population, the double burden of malnutrition. While Zambia has strong policies addressing undernutrition and stunting, these do not adequately address food environment drivers of the double burden of malnutrition and the adolescent age group and hence the need for nutrition policy reforms. We conducted a theory-based qualitative prospective policy analysis involving in-depth interviews with nutrition policy stakeholders and policy document review to examine the feasibility of introducing nutrition policy options that address the double burden of malnutrition among adolescents to identify barriers and facilitators to such policy reforms.

Food price and availability in Solomon Islands during COVID-19: A food environment survey.

In Solomon Islands, the retail food environment is an important food source, for instance, the dominant source of fresh fruit and vegetables for urban consumers is open markets. The effects of COVID-19 mitigation measures (such as restriction of human movement and border closures) in early 2020 placed food security at risk in many parts of the community. Of particular concern was the risk of price gouging in an already price-sensitive market.

Do Food and Nutrition Policies in Ethiopia Support the Prevention of Non-Communicable Diseases through Population-Level Salt Reduction Measures? A Policy Content Analysis.

Introduction: Despite the importance of salt reduction to health outcomes, relevant policy adoption in Ethiopia has been slow, and dietary consumption of sodium remains relatively high.

Aim: This analysis aims to understand the content and context of existing food-related policy, strategy, and guideline documents to identify gaps and potential opportunities for salt reduction in Ethiopia in the wider context of global evidence-informed best practice nutrition policy.

Methods: Policy documents relevant to food and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), published between 2010 and December 2021, were identified through searches of government websites supplemented with experts' advice.

Defining and conceptualising the commercial determinants of health.

Although commercial entities can contribute positively to health and society there is growing evidence that the products and practices of some commercial actors-notably the largest transnational corporations-are responsible for escalating rates of avoidable ill health, planetary damage, and social and health inequity; these problems are increasingly referred to as the commercial determinants of health. The climate emergency, the non-communicable disease epidemic, and that just four industry sectors (ie, tobacco, ultra-processed food, fossil fuel, and alcohol) already account for at least a third of global deaths illustrate the scale and huge economic cost of the problem. This paper, the first in a Series on the commercial determinants of health, explains how the shift towards market fundamentalism and increasingly powerful transnational corporations has created a pathological system in which commercial actors are increasingly enabled to cause harm and externalise the costs of doing so.

Operationalising multi-sectoral food- and nutrition-related policies to curb the rise in obesity in Ghana.

Objective: To examine the governance of the food and nutrition policy space with particular reference to interests and power among stakeholders.

Design: We followed a case study research design to conduct a nutrition policy analysis. We triangulated three sources of data: key-informant interviews, learning journey and relevant policy documents (2010-2020).

Opportunities to Strengthen Fish Supply Chain Policy to Improve External Food Environments for Nutrition in the Solomon Islands.

Malnutrition and food insecurity have significant social and economic impacts in small island developing states, such as the Solomon Islands. Enhancing the domestic supply of fish, the main source of local protein, can contribute to improved nutrition and food security. This research aimed to improve understanding of the policy interface between the fisheries and health sectors and identify opportunities to strengthen fish supply chain policy to improve domestic (particularly urban) access to fish in the Solomon Islands.

Framing policy objectives in the sustainable development goals: hierarchy, balance, or transformation?

Society continues to be confronted with the deep inadequacies of the current global order. Rampant income inequality between and within countries, dramatic disparities in access to resources, as seen during the COVID pandemic, persistent degradation of the environment, and numerous other problems are tied to existing systems of economy and government. Current global economic systems are implicated in perpetuating these problems.

Food trade among Pacific Island countries and territories: implications for food security and nutrition.

Background: There is growing attention to intra-regional trade in food. However, the relationship between such trade and food and nutrition is understudied. In this paper, we present an analysis of intra-regional food trade in the Pacific region, where there are major concerns regarding the nutritional implications of international food trade.