Elsevier

Public Health

Volume 129, Issue 8, August 2015, Pages 1061-1073
Public Health

Mini-Symposium
Reprint of: Food reformulation and the (neo)-liberal state: new strategies for strengthening voluntary salt reduction programs in the UK and USA

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2015.04.021Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Excess salt intake is a significant cause of preventable heart disease and stroke.

  • This paper analyses voluntary salt reduction strategies operating in the UK and US.

  • It presents a strategy for improving these initiatives using legislative scaffolds.

  • This model escalates from self-regulation to co-regulation if industry fails to achieve targets voluntarily.

Abstract

Globally, excess salt intake is a significant cause of preventable heart disease and stroke, given the established links between high salt intake, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease. This paper describes and evaluates the voluntary approaches to salt reduction that operate in the United Kingdom and the United States, and proposes a new strategy for improving their performance. Drawing on developments in the theory and practice of public health governance, as well as theoretical ideas from the field of regulatory studies, this paper proposes a responsive regulatory model for managing food reformulation initiatives, including salt reduction programs. This model provides a transparent framework for guiding industry behavior, making full use of industry’s willingness to participate in efforts to create healthier products, but using ‘legislative scaffolding’ to escalate from self-regulation towards co-regulation if industry fails to play its part in achieving national goals and targets.

Keywords

Salt reduction
Food reformulation
UK
US
Regulation
Law
Non-communicable diseases

Cited by (0)

This article is a reprint of a previously published article. For citation purposes, please use the original publication details; Public Health 129 (2015) 351–363.