International Journal of Health Policy and Management

International Journal of Health Policy and Management

Just Say No to the TPP: A Democratic Setback for American and Asian Public Health; Comment on “The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Is It Everything We Feared for Health?”

Document Type : Commentary

Authors
Carles Muntaner 1, 2, 3
Deb Finn Mahabir 1
1 Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
2 Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
3 School of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
10.15171/ijhpm.2016.145
Abstract
The article by Labonté, Schram, and Ruckert is a significant and timely analysis of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) policy and the severe threats to public health that it implies for 12 Pacific Rim populations from the Americas and Asia (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States, and Vietnam). With careful and analytic precision the authors convincingly unearth many aspects of this piece of legislation that undermine the public health achievements of most countries involved in the TTP. Our comments complement their policy analysis with the aim of providing a positive heuristic tool to assist in the understanding of the TPP, and other upcoming treaties like the even more encompassing Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and in so doing motivate the public health community to oppose the implementation of the relevant provisions of the agreements. The aims of this commentary on the study of Labonté et al are to show that an understanding of the health effects of the TPP is incomplete without a political analysis of policy formation, and that realist methods can be useful to uncover the mechanisms underlying TPP’s political and policy processes.

Highlights

 

 

Watch the Video Summary here. 

 

Keywords
Scientific Realism
Health Policy
Politics
Epistemology
Causality
Social Mechanisms
Subjects

 

 

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International Journal of Health Policy and Management
Volume 6, Issue 7
2017
Pages 419-421

  • Received Date 24 August 2016
  • Revised Date 06 November 2016
  • Accepted Date 31 October 2016
  • First Published Date 01 July 2017
  • Published Date 01 July 2017