Consolidated state political party control and the enactment of obesity-related policies in the United States

PREVENTIVE MEDICINE

卷:105

Article

Pomeranz, Jennifer L.¹  Siddiqi, Arjumand²  Bolanos, Gabriella J.^3,4  Hamad, Rita⁵ 

[1] NYU, Coll Global Publ Hlth, Dept Publ Hlth Policy & Management, 715 Broadway,10th Floor, New York, NY 10003 USA

[2] Univ Toronto, Dalla Lana Sch Publ Hlth, Toronto, ON, Canada

[3] NYU, Rory Meyers Coll Nursing, New York, NY USA

[4] NYU, Coll Global Publ Hlth, New York, NY USA

[5] Univ Calif San Francisco, Philip R Lee Inst Hlth Policy Studies, Dept Family & Community Med, San Francisco, CA 94143 USA

关键词: Policy;    Legislation;    Obesity;    State governments;    Physical activity;    Nutrition;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.ypmed.2017.08.028

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

States play a key role in addressing obesity and its risk factors through policymaking, but there is variation in state activity nationally. The goal of this study was to examine whether the presence of a consolidated Democratic or Republican trifecta - when a state's governorship and both houses of the legislature are dominated by the same political party - or divided government (i.e., without a trifecta) is associated with obesity-related policy content and enactment. In 2016 and 2017, we gathered state bills and laws utilizing the CDC Chronic Disease State Policy Tracking System, and examined the association between state-level political party control and the enactment of state-level obesity-related policies in all states during 2009-2015. The three areas of interest included: policies specifically addressing obesity, nutrition, or physical activity in communities, schools, or workplaces using a public health framework; neutral policies, such as creating government task forces; and policies that employed a business-interest framework (e.g., Commonsense Consumption Acts that prohibit consumer lawsuits against restaurant establishments). Using divided governments as the reference group, we found that states with Democratic trifectas enacted significantly more laws, and more laws with a public health framework. Republican trifecta states enacted more laws related to physical activity, and in some states like Texas, Republican trifectas were exceptionally active in passing policies with a public health framework. States with Republican trifectas enacted a statistically similar amount of laws as states with divided governments. These findings suggest promise across states for obesity-related public health policymaking under a variety of political regimes.

【 授权许可】

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