IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfpoli/v49y2014ip1p207-218.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Q methodology study of stakeholders’ views about accountability for promoting healthy food environments in England through the Responsibility Deal Food Network

Author

Listed:
  • Kraak, Vivica I.
  • Swinburn, Boyd
  • Lawrence, Mark
  • Harrison, Paul

Abstract

In March 2011, the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) Government launched five Public Health Responsibility Deal Networks to address public health priorities. The Networks used voluntary partnerships to influence peoples’ choice architecture to move them toward healthier behaviors. The purpose of this research was to conduct an exploratory study of diverse stakeholders’ perspectives about perceived responsibility and accountability expectations to improve food environments in England through the Food Network partnerships. A purposive sample of policy elites (n=31) from government, academia, food industry and non-government organizations sorted 48 statements related to improving food environments in England. Statements were grounded in three theoretical perspectives (i.e., legitimacy, nudge and public health law). PQMethod 2.33 statistical software program used factor analysis to identify viewpoints based on intra-individual differences for how participants sorted statements. The results revealed three distinct viewpoints, which explained 64% of the variance for 31 participants, and emphasized different expectations about responsibility. The food environment protectors (n=17) underscored government responsibility to address unhealthy food environments if voluntary partnerships are ineffective; the partnership pioneers (n=12) recognized government–industry partnerships as legitimate and necessary to address unhealthy food environments; and the commercial market defenders (n=1) emphasized individual responsibility for food choices and rejected government intervention to improve food environments. Consensus issues included: protecting children’s right to health; food industry practices that can and should be changed; government working with industry on product reformulation; and building consumer support for economically viable healthy products. Contentious issues were: inadequacy of accountability structures and government inaction to regulate food marketing practices targeting children. We conclude that understanding different viewpoints is a step toward building mutual trust to strengthen accountability structures that may help stakeholders navigate ideologically contentious issues to promote healthy food environments in England.

Suggested Citation

  • Kraak, Vivica I. & Swinburn, Boyd & Lawrence, Mark & Harrison, Paul, 2014. "A Q methodology study of stakeholders’ views about accountability for promoting healthy food environments in England through the Responsibility Deal Food Network," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(P1), pages 207-218.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:49:y:2014:i:p1:p:207-218
    DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2014.07.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919214001249
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.foodpol.2014.07.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timotijevic, L. & Barnett, J. & Raats, M.M., 2011. "Engagement, representativeness and legitimacy in the development of food and nutrition policy," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 490-498, August.
    2. David Pelletier & Vivica Kraak & Christine McCullum & Ulla Uusitalo, 2000. "Values, public policy, and community food security," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 17(1), pages 75-93, March.
    3. Sharma, L.L. & Teret, S.P. & Brownell, K.D., 2010. "The food industry and self-regulation: Standards to promote success and to avoid public health failures," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 100(2), pages 240-246.
    4. Lusk, Jayson L., 2012. "The political ideology of food," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 530-542.
    5. Panjwani, Clare & Caraher, Martin, 2014. "The Public Health Responsibility Deal: Brokering a deal for public health, but on whose terms?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 163-173.
    6. Monteiro, C.A. & Gomes, F.S. & Cannon, G., 2010. "The snack attack," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 100(6), pages 975-981.
    7. Bryden, Anna & Petticrew, Mark & Mays, Nicholas & Eastmure, Elizabeth & Knai, Cecile, 2013. "Voluntary agreements between government and business—A scoping review of the literature with specific reference to the Public Health Responsibility Deal," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 186-197.
    8. David Pelletier & Vivica Kraak & Christine McCullum & Ulla Unsitalo & Robert Rich, 1999. "Community food security: Salience and participation at community level," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 16(4), pages 401-419, December.
    9. Eden, Sally & Bear, Christopher & Walker, Gordon, 2008. "The sceptical consumer? Exploring views about food assurance," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 624-630, December.
    10. Freudenberg, N. & Tsui, E., 2014. "Evidence, power, and policy change in community-based participatory research," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 104(1), pages 11-14.
    11. Promberger, Marianne & Dolan, Paul & Marteau, Theresa M., 2012. "“Pay them if it works”: Discrete choice experiments on the acceptability of financial incentives to change health related behaviour," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(12), pages 2509-2514.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Choi, Seul Ki & Frongillo, Edward A. & Blake, Christine E. & Thrasher, James F., 2019. "Why are restricted food items still sold after the implementation of the school store policy? the case of South Korea," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 161-169.
    2. Jin-Myong Lee & Hyo-Jung Kim & Jong-Youn Rha, 2017. "Shopping for Society? Consumers’ Value Conflicts in Socially Responsible Consumption Affected by Retail Regulation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-15, October.
    3. Bos, Colin & van der Lans, Ivo A. & van Kleef, Ellen & van Trijp, Hans C.M., 2018. "Promoting healthy choices from vending machines: Effectiveness and consumer evaluations of four types of interventions," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 247-255.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Knai, C. & Petticrew, M. & Durand, M.A. & Eastmure, E. & James, L. & Mehrotra, A. & Scott, C. & Mays, N., 2015. "Has a public–private partnership resulted in action on healthier diets in England? An analysis of the Public Health Responsibility Deal food pledges," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 1-10.
    2. Lelieveldt, Herman, 2023. "Food industry influence in collaborative governance: The case of the Dutch prevention agreement on overweight," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    3. Panjwani, Clare & Caraher, Martin, 2014. "The Public Health Responsibility Deal: Brokering a deal for public health, but on whose terms?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 163-173.
    4. Cairns, Georgina & Macdonald, Laura, 2016. "Stakeholder insights on the planning and development of an independent benchmark standard for responsible food marketing," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 109-120.
    5. Reynolds, J.P. & Pilling, M. & Marteau, T.M., 2018. "Communicating quantitative evidence of policy effectiveness and support for the policy: Three experimental studies," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 218(C), pages 1-12.
    6. Latvala, Terhi & Mandolesi, Serena & Nicholas, Phillipa & Zanoli, Raffaele, 2013. "Identifying Expectations for Innovations in Management Practices in Dairy Sector by Using Q Methodology," 2013 International European Forum, February 18-22, 2013, Innsbruck-Igls, Austria 164734, International European Forum on System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks.
    7. Coast, Joanna, 2018. "A history that goes hand in hand: Reflections on the development of health economics and the role played by Social Science & Medicine, 1967–2017," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 227-232.
    8. Tatyana Deryugina & Barrett Kirwan, 2018. "Does The Samaritan'S Dilemma Matter? Evidence From U.S. Agriculture," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 983-1006, April.
    9. Emma L Giles & Frauke Becker & Laura Ternent & Falko F Sniehotta & Elaine McColl & Jean Adams, 2016. "Acceptability of Financial Incentives for Health Behaviours: A Discrete Choice Experiment," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(6), pages 1-19, June.
    10. Trey Malone & F. Bailey Norwood, 2020. "Gluten aversion is not limited to the political left," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 37(1), pages 1-15, March.
    11. Sacha Amaruzaman & Douglas K. Bardsley & Randy Stringer, 2022. "Reflexive policies and the complex socio-ecological systems of the upland landscapes in Indonesia," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 39(2), pages 683-700, June.
    12. Danièle Benezech, 2011. "La confiance entre les partenaires de l'échange, au-delà des labels," Post-Print halshs-00592488, HAL.
    13. von Kaufmann, Freddie & Skafida, Valeria, 2023. "Captive school markets, industry self-regulation, and public-private partnerships: Narratives shaping the development of alternative proteins in the United States, 1965–1982," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    14. Pechey, Rachel & Burge, Peter & Mentzakis, Emmanouil & Suhrcke, Marc & Marteau, Theresa M., 2014. "Public acceptability of population-level interventions to reduce alcohol consumption: A discrete choice experiment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 104-109.
    15. Julie V. Stanton & Deirdre T. Guion, 2013. "Taking Advantage of a Vulnerable Group? Emotional Cues in Ads Targeting Parents," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 485-517, November.
    16. Nakamura, Yusuke & Matsumoto, Hiroshige & Yamamoto-Mitani, Noriko & Suzuki, Miho & Igarashi, Ayumi, 2018. "Impact of support agreement between municipalities and convenience store chain companies on store staff’s support activities for older adults," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(12), pages 1377-1383.
    17. Tonkin, Emma & Meyer, Samantha B. & Coveney, John & Webb, Trevor & Wilson, Annabelle M., 2016. "The process of making trust related judgements through interaction with food labelling," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1-11.
    18. Andres Silva & Lindsey M. Higgins & Micaela M. Kulesz, 2016. "Nutritional Impact of Child-Directed TV Food Advertising Regulation: Are We Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic?," Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(3), pages 422-444.
    19. F. Graef & K. D. Mutabazi & S. Sieber & F. Asch & B. Makoko & M. Bonatti & M. Brüntrup & C. Gornott & L. Herrmann & R. Herrmann & L. Kaburire & F. C. Kahimba & A. Kimaro & A. Kuntosch & H. J. König & , 2019. "Multi-Disciplinary North-South Collaboration in Participatory Action Research on Food Value Chains: a German-Tanzanian Case Study on Perceptions, Experiences and Challenges," Systemic Practice and Action Research, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 359-378, August.
    20. Noémi Berlin & Léontine Goldzahl & Linda Bauld & Pat Hoddinott & Ivan Berlin, 2018. "Public acceptability of financial incentives to reward pregnant smokers who quit smoking: a United Kingdom–France comparison," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(5), pages 697-708, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:49:y:2014:i:p1:p:207-218. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/foodpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.