a b s t r a c tBackground: Support for policies to combat obesity is often undermined by a public sense that obesity is largely a matter of personal responsibility. Industry rhetoric is a major contributor to this perception, as the soda/fast food/big food companies emphasize choice and individual agency in their efforts to neutralize policies that are burdensome. Yet obesity experts recognize that environmental forces play a major role in obesity. We investigate whether exposure to a taste-engineering frame increases support for food and beverage policies that address obesity. A taste-engineering frame details strategies used by the food industry to engineer preferences and increase the over-consumption of processed foods and sugary beverages. We also examine the effects of exposure to two contextualized values that have recently been promoted in expert discourseeconsumer knowledge and consumer safety e on public support of policies. Our research shows how causal frames and contextualized values may effectively produce support for new obesity policies. Methods: We use an online survey experiment to test the effects of exposure to a taste-engineering frame (TEF), the value of consumer knowledge (CK), or the value of consumer safety (CS), on level of support for a range of policies. A random sample of adults, age 18 þ living in the United States was included in the study (N ¼ 2580). Ordered logistic regression was used to measure the effects of treatment exposure. The primary outcome was level-of-support for four (4) food-industry related, obesity prevention policies (aka food and beverage policies): 1) require food-manufacturers to disclose the amount of additives in food products on food packaging; 2) require food-manufacturers to advertise food products in accordance with their actual nutritional value; 3) prohibit all high-fat, high-sugar food advertising on television programming watched primarily by children; and 4) increase healthy food availability in work sites, schools, and hospitals. Findings: These data suggest that a taste-engineering frame and contextualized values significantly increase public support for many of the food and beverage policies tested. Conclusions: Applying a taste-engineering frame and/or contextualized values to address obesity advances a population-based policy agenda to counteract the effects of food-industry strategies.

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The mechanisms that create a significant association between homeownership and health seem not to be operative for racial/ethnic minorities or are countervailed by other processes, such as possible housing insecurity, that may create an adverse association. Homeownership provides a baseline for future investigations.

Frontline officials (such as mayors and commissioners) are responsible for local-level responses to the COVID-19 pandemic across the United States. Their actions and attitudes, either in support of or opposition to public health recommendations, have resulted in widespread variation in local-level pandemic response. Despite evidence that religion significantly impacts the general public’s response to the pandemic, the influence of religion on officials’ behaviors and attitudes is unknown. Using a unique, two-wave, representative survey of frontline officials, we examine how religion influenced officials’ reported personal health behaviors (mask wearing, social distancing) and attitudes toward institutional reopenings. Results show high levels of compliance with public health recommendations, but religious nationalism negatively influences all outcomes. Other religious factors, like affiliation and attendance, vary in their influence and even work differently among officials compared to the general public. Frontline officials are key for understanding how religion influences the pandemic and state action more generally.

BackgroundThe current housing crisis in the U.S. requires the consideration and promotion of policies that improve the circumstances of severe housing cost burdens. Building public awareness of the health impacts associated with housing affordability may be a key prerequisite for policy change.MethodsQuantitative and qualitative data from a national survey were used to investigate public understandings about housing affordability as a key driver of health. Quantitative and qualitative findings were integrated to test whether any relationships existed between respondents’ considerations and concerns about housing affordability and their perceptions about housing affordability as a social determinant of health.FindingsThese data support four key findings. First, understandings of the relationship between affordable housing and health are partisan and income-based driven, with Republicans and high-income respondents less likely to acknowledge the effects of housing affordability on health. Second, varied frames of communication about the relationship between housing affordability and health may produce significantly different reactions among political and income subgroups.Third, while there is considerable agreement that housing affordability promotes health when using forced-choice measures, connections between affordable housing and health are not readily volunteered. Finally, the themes of personal responsibility and stability and security significantly resonate with Republicans and high-income earners.ConclusionsContextualizing the issue of housing affordability within various domains in ways that effectively resonate with the American public and policymakers and across political and income spectra, is highly imperative.