No commitment yet to tackle the ‘commercial determinants’ of noncommunicable disease pandemics
Media engagements & Presentations
In this post, we speak to the authors of a recent PLOS Global Public Health article, Investing in human development and building state resilience in fragile contexts: A case study of early nutrition investments in Burkina Faso, about the story behind the research. The paper was written by Chris Desmond, Kathryn Watt, Palwendé R. Boua, Candice Moore, Agnes Erzse, Hermann Sorgho, Karen Hofman, Toussaint Roumba, Halidou Tinto, Kate A. Ward and the INPreP group.
PRICELESS Researchers show how the syndemic of obesity, undernutrition, and climate change collides in South Africa. Our recent commentary in the South Africa Journal of Science calls for coherent policies and breaking down of commercial actors' incentives are needed.
The series is a ground-breaking exposé of the products and practices that are collectively called the commercial determinants of health (CDOH). This collection defines the CDOH, shows how they function and provides extensive evidence of how human and planetary health are damaged by commercial actors and entities.
This episode of The Princeton Pulse Featuring Priceless SA’s Karen Hofman explores the effectiveness of levies on sugar-sweetened beverages, comparing experiences from South Africa and Philadelphia.
Even over the short period that the sugar tax has been in effect, studies from South Africa have shown that the tax has led to South Africans, especially the youth, buying less sugary drinks, and has encouraged the sugary drinks manufacturers to reduce sugar content in these drinks. This means that there is an overall projected reduction in overweight and obesity rates.
COP27’s recent announcement that Coca-Cola will be one of the sponsors has sparked outrage, and rightly so. This form of greenwashing is particularly reprehensible given that Coca-Cola is the biggest producer of plastic waste and has also been involved in various human rights and climate related atrocities such as contamination and depletion of water sources.
Aisha Moolla and Agnes Erzse represented PRICELESS at the DOHaD 2022 in Vancouver, Canada
New research from Wits University’s Centre for Health Economics and Decision Sciences, just published in Nature Food, shows that voluntary commitments by major food and drinks companies to take actions in support of public health don’t work.
For decades, the messaging around weight loss and healthy eating has said that what we eat is a choice. But In South Africa, ‘choosing’ to eat healthily is more complicated than it seems and big food and beverage companies have been getting around industry regulations and legislation using a tactic called Delay, Dilute, Delegitimise to make a profit off of unhealthy foods causing malnutrition diseases.
The team at the research to policy unit, PRICELESS SA, has been highly productive over the past few months, with several important publications that relate to NHI in different ways. PRICELESS SA has also published two innovative manuscripts detailing SA- specific integration of ethics principles from the NHI white paper, into a model framework for the process of priority setting, based on SA’s shared values. Read up more on this work from page 8 here.
Poster about the use of case studies in developing an ethical Framework for use in a Health Technology Assessment Body.