Analyzing the impacts of global trade and investment on non-communicable diseases and risk factors: a critical review of methodological approaches used in quantitative analyses

Cowling, Krycia; Thow, Anne Marie; Porter, Keshia M. Pollack

doi:10.1186/s12992-018-0371-8

Cited by 17 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 53 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…There is a limited literature of systematic reviews and analyses of specific trade agreements identify various ways in which trade liberalization can affect food systems [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] . Three key pathways emerge from this literature: trade in raw or finished food commodities; increased foreign investment in domestic production, manufacturing and distribution of foods; and influence on regulatory policy space.…”

Section: Implications Of Trade Liberalization For Food Systems Malnumentioning

confidence: 99%

The nexus between international trade, food systems, malnutrition and climate change

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

F ood systems, which are at the heart of pressing societal challenges including malnutrition and climate change, are heavily influenced by trade-related changes to domestic policy and product environments-in both positive and negative ways. This interaction between trade, malnutrition and climate change has been amplified in the last decades by the shift towards industrial food systems, with global supply chains owned and operated by large or transnational agribusinesses, manufacturers, retailers and food service chains 1 . If global malnutrition and climate change are to be addressed, it is vital to understand their link with trade agreements and how these can be improved to support a nutritious, equitable and environmentally sustainable food system. While there is a growing body of evidence related to trade, food systems and malnutrition, what remains absent from the literature is an examination of the current understanding of the ways in which the technical and political aspects of trade agreements interact with food systems to affect malnutrition and climate change. Here, we review the literature connecting trade and food systems to show how major technical and political aspects of such relationships may affect malnutrition and climate change ( Fig. 1). We aim to elucidate how the technicalities of trade, through different types of agreements and provisions, sit alongside the political economy of trade policy. In doing so, we also highlight the opportunities and challenges of creating nutrition-and climate-sensitive trade policy.The Review starts with an overview of the global food trade regime and the technicalities of how trade agreements interact with policies aimed at improving malnutrition and climate change. It then focuses on the political and policy processes surrounding trade agreements that can enable or constrain attention to malnutrition and climate change. Global and national policy windows for connecting trade, nutrition and climate change mitigation are highlighted at the end, as well as how public interest actors must work to ensure policy coherence towards those goals. The global trade regimeEstablished in 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO) governs the multilateral trade rules among its 164 member countries 2 and presides over 24 multilateral trade agreements. These agreements cover a wide range of binding obligations on issues including trade in services (General Agreement on Trades in Services; GATS), Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property rights (TRIPS), Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), agriculture (the Agreement on Agriculture; AOA) and a dispute settlement system 3 .Through these trade agreements, member states are required to open their markets, including agri-food markets, by reducing tariffs and non-tariff barriers to imports, reducing subsidies for exports and reducing domestic agricultural support. WTO rules promote the global integration of markets and provide a favourable operating environment for the private sector. These liberalization policies and agreements hav...

show abstract

Section: Implications Of Trade Liberalization For Food Systems Malnumentioning

confidence: 99%

The nexus between international trade, food systems, malnutrition and climate change

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Different methods yield different insights into the trade and investment/health nexus, although establishing causality in the relationship between trade policy, trade and investment liberalization treaties, and specific health outcomes, as with research on most complex social phenomena, remains challenging. Two recent contributions to Globalization and Health address head-on challenges facing trade and health researchers in improving the robustness of their findings [46, 47]. Both contributions cited methodological limitations in the current literature, examining studies well beyond those published only in this journal.…”

Section: Collected Articles From Globalization and Health (2006–2018)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Trade, investment and public health: compiling the evidence, assembling the arguments

Labonté

2019

Global Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Trade has long been an axiomatic characteristic of globalization, although international rules governing trade are of more recent vintage. Notably in the post-World War II period, an ever increasing number of countries began negotiating treaties to reduce, first, tariff barriers and, later, non-tariff barriers (government measures of any sort) that could impede the cross-border flow of goods. The rationale, in part, was that countries that became more entwined economically would be less likely to go to war with each other. It wouldn’t be in their own economic interests to do so, or at least that of the firms based within their borders but engaged in transnational trade and dependent upon global supply chains. At first primarily an undertaking of developed (high-income) countries, developing (low and middle-income countries) slowly enjoined in what, in 1995, became the World Trade Organization. The WTO locked in scheduled declines in tariffs (border taxes), albeit with lesser obligations on developing country members (a problematic nomenclature given the vast geographic, economic, and development differences between such countries, but which nonetheless persists within the WTO). Importantly, a slew of new agreements that coincided with the establishment of the WTO also sought to liberalize trade in services (not just goods) (The General Agreement on Trade in Services), create new rules for agricultural trade (Agreement on Agriculture), expand intellectual property rights protections (The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights), limit trade-distorting government subsidies (Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures), and ensure that government food, health, or environmental regulations would not pose an unnecessary barrier to trade (the Technical Barriers to Trade and the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Agreements). Outside of the WTO system, bilateral or regional investment treaties granting special rights to foreign investors to sue governments for actions perceived to affect the value of their investment (such as direct expropriation or passage of new laws and regulations considered ‘tantamount to expropriation’) similarly exploded in number, dispute frequency, and the size of monetary claims. The breadth and depth of these post-1995 Agreements meant that few areas of general public health concern are potentially untouched.

show abstract

“…It leads to improved global health, for example, by improving response and patient adherence to anti-diabetics, anti-hypertensive, and secondary prevention drugs in patients with cardiovascular diseases. Better responses also reduce the loss of working days, further contributing to the global economy [ 71 , 72 , 73 ]. By focusing on clinical outcomes and the reduction of side effects, second-generation AI systems are likely to increase their adoption by patients and clinicians, supporting prolonged adherence to and sustainable effects from chronic drugs.…”

Section: Reducing Healthcare Costs Through Second-generation Ai: Umentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving Global Healthcare and Reducing Costs Using Second-Generation Artificial Intelligence-Based Digital Pills: A Market Disruptor

Ilan

2021

IJERPH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background and Aims: Improving global health requires making current and future drugs more effective and affordable. While healthcare systems around the world are faced with increasing costs, branded and generic drug companies are facing the challenge of creating market differentiators. Two of the problems associated with the partial or complete loss of response to chronic medications are a lack of adherence and compensatory responses to chronic drug administration, which leads to tolerance and loss of effectiveness. Approach and Results: First-generation artificial intelligence (AI) systems do not address these needs and suffer from a low adoption rate by patients and clinicians. Second-generation AI systems are focused on a single subject and on improving patients’ clinical outcomes. The digital pill, which combines a personalized second-generation AI system with a branded or generic drug, improves the patient response to drugs by increasing adherence and overcoming the loss of response to chronic medications. By improving the effectiveness of drugs, the digital pill reduces healthcare costs and increases end-user adoption. The digital pill also provides a market differentiator for branded and generic drug companies. Conclusions: Implementing the use of a digital pill is expected to reduce healthcare costs, providing advantages for all the players in the healthcare system including patients, clinicians, healthcare authorities, insurance companies, and drug manufacturers. The described business model for the digital pill is based on distributing the savings across all stakeholders, thereby enabling improved global health.

show abstract

Analyzing the impacts of global trade and investment on non-communicable diseases and risk factors: a critical review of methodological approaches used in quantitative analyses

Cited by 17 publications

References 53 publications

The nexus between international trade, food systems, malnutrition and climate change

The nexus between international trade, food systems, malnutrition and climate change

Trade, investment and public health: compiling the evidence, assembling the arguments

Improving Global Healthcare and Reducing Costs Using Second-Generation Artificial Intelligence-Based Digital Pills: A Market Disruptor

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About