Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #121487

Lori Dorfman, DrPH, Berkeley Media Studies Group, 2140 Shattuck Avenue Suite 804, Berkeley, CA 94704, 510-204-9700, dorfman@bmsg.org

Using various strategies and tactics, tobacco control has shifted the frame on the issue from a focus on personal responsibility (smokers) to the environment that fosters or inhibits tobacco use. Nutrition advocates are now eyeing tobacco control enviously, wondering if similar tactics will work to expand the frame on their issue. Comparisons to other prevention efforts, including alcohol, auto hazards, and firearms, are also relevant because, like nutrition, each involves the use of potentially deadly products easily available in the marketplace. Public health battles around these issues lay bare the stark value conflicts inherent in our society, between social justice and market justice. Researchers and advocates from tobacco, alcohol, guns, and auto hazard control have identified clear lessons that could accelerate progress on nutrition. The most important is that regulation of harmful products is at least as important as behavior change. Others include: focus on environments, not just individuals; be wary of working with industry; engage communities at highest risk early in the effort; cultivate leadership and policy savvy at the local level; conduct research that informs policy; and create an infrastructure to support long-term advocacy, including support for community organizing, policy development, and media advocacy.

Learning Objectives:

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation