Analysis of Public Testimony About Philadelphia's Sweetened Beverage Tax

Elstein, Jeanette G.; Lowery, Caitlin; Sangoi, Puja; Peterhans, Ana; Bleich, Sara N.; Lawman, Hannah G.; Roberto, Christina A.

doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2021.08.023

Cited by 3 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…A number of studies examined the political process of implementing FPs (almost entirely SSB taxes), finding that a key barrier to this process related to industry-promoted anti-tax arguments that they lead to economic harm, 28 , 31 , 34 , 35 , 62 , 63 , 67 , 80 , 82 such as unemployment or reduced sales revenues: concerns echoed by retailers. 70 Studies which examined the economic impact of SSB taxation, found a lack of RWE that taxes have a negative impact on employment within affected industries and in general, 74 , 78 or a negative impact on retailers who, in the US, supported implementation of nationwide SSB taxation.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An umbrella review of the acceptability of fiscal and pricing policies to reduce diet-related noncommunicable disease

et al. 2023

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Context Poor diet has been implicated in a range of noncommunicable diseases. Fiscal and pricing policies (FPs) may offer a means by which consumption of food and non-alcoholic beverages with links to such diseases can be influenced to improve public health. Objective To examine the acceptability of FPs to reduce diet-related noncommunicable disease, based on systematic review evidence. Data Sources MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsychInfo, SCI, SSCI, Web of Science, Scopus, EconLit, the Cochrane Library, Epistemonikos, and the Campbell Collaboration Library were searched for relevant studies published between January 1, 1990 and June 2021. Data Extraction The studies included systematic reviews of diet-related FPs and: used real-world evidence; examined real or perceived barriers/facilitators; targeted the price of food or non-alcoholic beverages; and applied to entire populations within a jurisdiction. A total of 9996 unique relevant records were identified, which were augmented by a search of bibliographies and recommendations from an external expert advisory panel. Following screening, 4 systematic reviews remained. Data Analysis Quality appraisal was conducted using the AMSTAR 2 tool. A narrative synthesis was undertaken, with outcomes grouped according to the WHO-INTEGRATE criteria. The findings indicated a paucity of high-quality systematic review evidence and limited public support for the use of FPs to change dietary habits. This lack of support was related to a number of factors that included: their perceived potential to be regressive; a lack of transparency, ie, there was mistrust around the use of revenues raised; a paucity of evidence around health benefits; the deliberate choice of rates that were lower than those considered necessary to affect diet; and concerns about the potential of such FPs to harm economic outcomes such as employment. Conclusion The findings underscore the need for high-quality systematic review evidence on this topic, and the importance of responding to public concerns and putting in place mechanisms to address these when implementing FPs. This study was funded by Safefood [02A-2020]. Systematic Review Registration PROSPERO registration no. CRD42021274454.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An umbrella review of the acceptability of fiscal and pricing policies to reduce diet-related noncommunicable disease

et al. 2023

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“…Many themes overlapped with those found in analyses of other SSB campaigns, including exploitation of local concerns by the ABA. 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 The 2018 vote to keep tax revenue for use by the Health Equity Fund passed by a larger margin than the original 2016 measure. Pro arguments in the 2018 campaign focused largely on community and funding benefits, which align with findings and recommendations from Berkeley and Philadelphia.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pro arguments in the 2018 campaign focused largely on community and funding benefits, which align with findings and recommendations from Berkeley and Philadelphia. 8 , 17 The focus on community and funding benefits may have played a role in the high public support for the 2018 measure because public support has been observed to be higher when an SSB tax is framed as funding health and public programs rather than as a nutrition intervention or means to fill general funding gaps. 19 , 20 Overall, there were more pro-framed articles than anti-framed, but there was expressed skepticism from news staff about motivations behind the tax and the inclusion of affected communities, which may indicate the centering of public health advocates rather than affected community members in the campaign’ outward-facing aspects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous research has examined the media coverage and framing of SSB tax policy in Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco in California and public testimony to the Philadelphia City Council. 15 , 16 , 17 Themes included, for instance, the health risks of SSBs and revenue benefits for community programs in pro-framed media as well as ideological and economic (e.g., regressivity, grocery tax) arguments and the leveraging of local issues by anti-framed media.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Framing and Themes of the City of Boulder's Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax Coverage in the Local News From 2016 to 2018

2023

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“…Existing impact evaluations of the Philadelphia Beverage Tax have focused on postintervention experiences of retailers 22 and families of low income, 23 changes in purchasing [24][25][26][27][28] and consumption behaviors, 29,30 prices and product availability, [25][26][27]31 and employment. 32,33 Implementation evaluations have been conducted through interviews with those involved in the policymaking process, 34 analysis of public testimony provided to City Council, 35 and a review of the policy's development and enactment. 36 However, there is a lack in understanding of the public disclosure in which these changes occurred, notably public sentiments throughout the Philadelphia Beverage Tax's development and implementation, and the types of conversations related to the tax, which occurred during this time (including what entities were the main sources of information).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Leveraging Multiyear, Geospatial Social Media Data for Health Policy Evaluations: Lessons From the Philadelphia Beverage Tax

Ali

Lowery

Trude

2023

Journal of Public Health Management and Practice

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Context: Public reactions to health policies are vital to understand policy sustainability and impact but have been elusively difficult to dynamically measure. The 2021 launch of the Twitter Academic Application Programming Interface (API), allowing for historical tweet analyses, represents a potentially powerful tool for complex, comprehensive policy analyses. Objective: Using the Philadelphia Beverage Tax (implemented January 2017) as a case study, this research extracted longitudinal and geographic changes in sentiments, and key influencers in policy-related conversations. Design: The Twitter API was used to retrieve all publicly available tweets related to the Tax between 2016 and 2019. Setting: Twitter. Participants: Users who posted publicly available tweets related to the Philadelphia Beverage Tax (PBT). Main Outcome: Tweet content, frequency, sentiment, and user-related information. Measures: Tweet content, authors, engagement, and location were analyzed in parallel to key PBT events. Published emotional lexicons were used for sentiment analyses. Results: A total of 45 891 tweets were retrieved (1311 with geolocation data). Changes in the tweet volume and sentiment were strongly driven by Tax-related litigation. While anger and fear increased in the months prior to the policy's implementation, they progressively decreased after its implementation; trust displayed an inverse trend. The 50 tweeters with the highest positive engagement included media outlets (n = 24), displaying particularly high tweet volume/engagement, and public personalities (n = 10), displaying the greatest polarization in tweet sentiment. Most geo-located tweets, reflecting 321 unique locations, were from the Philadelphia region (55.2%). Sentiment and positive engagement varied, although concentrations of negative sentiments were observed in some Philadelphia suburbs. Conclusions: Findings highlighted how longitudinal Twitter data can be leveraged to deconstruct specific, dynamic insights on public policy reactions and information dissemination to inform better policy implementation and evaluation (eg, anticipating catalysts for both heightened public interest and geographic, sentiment changes in policy conversations).

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Analysis of Public Testimony About Philadelphia's Sweetened Beverage Tax

Cited by 3 publications

References 43 publications

An umbrella review of the acceptability of fiscal and pricing policies to reduce diet-related noncommunicable disease

An umbrella review of the acceptability of fiscal and pricing policies to reduce diet-related noncommunicable disease

Framing and Themes of the City of Boulder's Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax Coverage in the Local News From 2016 to 2018

Leveraging Multiyear, Geospatial Social Media Data for Health Policy Evaluations: Lessons From the Philadelphia Beverage Tax

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