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Global Oral Health and Inequalities
Published in Vincent La Placa, Julia Morgan, Social Science Perspectives on Global Public Health, 2023
Commercial determinants of health are defined as strategies and approaches used by the private sector to promote products and choices that are injurious to health (Kickbusch et al., 2016). The WHO Director General has stated that the effort to impede NDCs goes against the business interests of powerful economic operators (Chan, 2013; WHO, 2015). From this information, it is clear to see that while the overall global burden of oral disease may not have reduced significantly, the pattern of disease is moving and clustering in LMICs. There are many complex reasons for this, including poorly resourced, or very limited services, increasing consumption of food and drinks containing free sugars, poor access to fluoride, use of tobacco, and smoking.
Are Corporations Nudging the Nudgers?
Published in The American Journal of Bioethics, 2019
Like other proponents of nudging, Engelen emphasizes that framing effects influence individual behaviors. But he fails to recognize the ways in which policymakers’ support for nudging may itself be a reflection of a particular kind of framing of public health problems and their solutions—what some scholars call “diagnostic” and “prognostic” framing (Entman 1993). In the case of obesity, diagnostic framing tends to place responsibility on individuals and their poor “lifestyle choices,” instead of directing our attention to the practices of powerful actors in our food system—what some call the “corporate” or “commercial determinants of health.” The prognostic framing posits that changing individual behaviors is the most effective solution to the obesity epidemic, rather than regulation or other measures directed toward changing the behavior of powerful corporate actors. (An example of the latter might be a direct tax on corporations whose products or practices are exacerbating diet-related noncommunicable diseases.) In public health, the dominant frames tend to be the least threatening to corporate interests. This is not an unfortunate accident. On the contary, food and soda companies (among others) reinforce these frames through public–private partnerships and multistakeholder initiatives with public health agencies, research universities, and a plethora of civil society organizations (Marks 2019).
Achieving MDG of reducing maternal mortality ratio: A comparative study of selected South Asian countries
Published in Health Care for Women International, 2023
To date, several studies have been conducted to determine the effect of gender discrimination on women’s health. Gender drives inequities, discrimination, and marginalization at three levels – by affecting health through socioeconomic and commercial determinants of health; by affecting health behavior by putting socio-cultural norms affecting health, and by affecting the health system, which looks into role of the gender within the system (Manandhar et al., 2018). Sociocultural barriers at the community and household level prevent many women from obtaining access to appropriate medical services at the time of delivery. Gender and class are two factors responsible for the disparities not only in access to healthcare access but also in the design and delivery of the healthcare system (Mumtaz et al., 2012). Gender disparities lead to social exclusion, neglect, and abuse of health system for women; additionally, it affects the maternal care seeking behavior of women. Gupta et al. (2018) evaluated the supply-side barriers in providing maternal healthcare and reported that several sociocultural constraints such as resistance to avail healthcare facilities on time and resistance to seek counseling from women healthcare workers lower the impact of public healthcare policies. These findings were consistent with those reported by Venkatanarayanan and Veeramani (2016) in that the health status of women reflects gender imbalance, and poor health of women is a consequence of not only lack of income but also deprivation of their capabilities and gender biases. Wang (2014) reported that gender equality in terms of economic and political development plays a very significant role in improving maternal and child healthcare and in implementing a public health policy to provide institutional delivery care to the expectant mothers.