PHM-Exch> Globalization and Health - Framing International Trade and Chronic Disease

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Ruggiero, Mrs. Ana Lucia (WDC) <ruglucia at paho.org>


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*Globalization and Health
 – Framing International Trade and Chronic Disease

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Ronald Labonté 1*, Katia S Mohindra 1, Raphael Lencucha 2

1 **Institute** of **Population** Health, **University** of **Ottawa**, ****
Ottawa**, **Canada********

2 University of **Lethbridge**, ****Lethbridge**, **Alberta**, **Canada*****
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*Globalization and Health **2011, **7**:21 doi:10.1186/1744-8603-7-21 – July
2011

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Available online at: http://bit.ly/pWL8KA

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“…..There is an emerging evidence base that global trade is linked with the
rise of chronic disease in many low and middle-income countries (LMICs).
This linkage is associated, in part, with the global diffusion of unhealthy
lifestyles and health damaging products posing a particular challenge to
countries still facing high burdens of communicable disease. ****


We developed a generic framework which depicts the determinants and pathways
connecting global trade with chronic disease. We then applied this framework
to three key risk factors for chronic disease: unhealthy diets, alcohol, and
tobacco. This led to specific ‘product pathways’, which can be further
refined and used by health policy-makers to engage with their country’s
trade policy-makers around health impacts of ongoing trade treaty
negotiations, and by researchers to continue refining an evidence base on
how global trade is affecting patterns of chronic disease. ****

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The prevention and treatment of chronic diseases is now rising on global
policy agendas, highlighted by the UN Summit on Noncommunicable Diseases
(September 2011). Briefs and declarations leading up to this Summit
reference the role of globalization and trade in the spread of risk factors
for these diseases, but emphasis is placed on interventions to change health
behaviours and on voluntary corporate responsibility. ****

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The findings summarized in this article imply the need for a more concerted
approach to regulate trade-related risk factors and thus more engagement
between health and trade policy sectors within and between nations. An
explicit recognition of the role of trade policies in the spread of
noncommunicable disease risk factors should be a minimum outcome of the
September 2011 Summit, with a commitment to ensure that future trade
treaties do not increase such risks….”

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