Nanny or canny? Community perceptions of government intervention for preventive health

Grunseit, Anne; Rowbotham, Sheila; Crane, Melanie; Indig, Devon; Bauman, Adrian; Wilson, Andrew

doi:10.1080/09581596.2018.1468020

Cited by 26 publications

(101 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…A national survey found 46% of respondents felt the government had a "large or very large" role in maintaining people's health and 80% "agreed or strongly agreed" that "sometimes the government needs to make laws that keep people from harming themselves", even though 90% endorsed personal responsibility. 23 This suggests that government policies and interventions on public health issues are generally viewed positively by community members rather than as unwanted impositions on personal liberties, despite the claims made by those invoking the nanny state rhetoric. Other research indicates community support for public health interventions depends on the nature of the intervention and the problem being addressed.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The dominant frame is that the nanny state destroys freedom; an appeal to a value that sensible people would naturally support. 23,27 In this sample, the nanny state is portrayed as mad, out of control and in need of being curtailed. The findings can help public health advocates and researchers recognise when such free-choice rhetoric is being deployed to delay, defer or block health measures intended to reduce death and disease.…”

Section: Peer Review and Provenancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Public health researchers have called for more active and nuanced discussions of new public health measures and deliberate efforts to counter nanny state claims and de-emphasise individual rights. 23,28,29 Strategies to counter nanny state arguments include: directly challenging nanny state rhetoric; highlighting the corporate and economic vested interests of proindustry speakers 28,30 , explaining different ways that personal freedoms can manifest in a pluralistic society 29 ; humanising the debate about prevention policies by presenting personal stories of regret from previous opponents of new laws 28 ; and discussing the various implications and consequences of new measures to facilitate a more complete assessment of issues by community members. 23 In Australian community engagement work, Grunseit et al 23 observed various perceptions of the government's role in preventing ill health: as an investor in population health; a leader in promoting salutogenic behaviours; and a partner in supporting individual good health.…”

Section: Peer Review and Provenancementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Talking about a nanny nation: investigating the rhetoric framing public health debates in Australian news media

Chau¹,

Kite²,

Ronto³

et al. 2019

Public Health Res Pract

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Objectives and importance of study: News media portrayal of public health issues influences public opinion, policy action and decision making. This study aimed to analyse the use of 'nanny state' frames in Australian news media coverage; identify the stakeholders invoking this frame; determine which public health-related policies attract such framing; and investigate whether 'nanny state' framing is directly challenged in news coverage. Study type: A qualitative framing analysis.Methods: Articles featuring the term 'nanny state' that were published in Australian print newspapers during matched periods between March and September in 2017 and 2018 were sourced through Factiva, coded and analysed for content and 'nanny state' framing. Content analysis was used to identify any public health-related issues that the terminology nanny state was applied to, and who was portrayed as imposing the nanny state. Frame analysis was used to analyse what meanings are co-presented with the phrase nanny state. Results:Out of 81 print newspaper articles that included the term 'nanny state', 19% linked the term to restricting personal choice or creating dissatisfaction with too many health-related rules and regulations broadly, across a range of issues, including: bike helmets, e-cigarettes, firearm restrictions, seatbelts, pool fences and smoking bans. The next most frequent links were to regulations on alcohol (17%), road safety (14%), obesity-related issues (7%) and tobacco control (6%).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Peer Review and Provenancementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Peer Review and Provenancementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Talking about a nanny nation: investigating the rhetoric framing public health debates in Australian news media

Chau¹,

Kite²,

Ronto³

et al. 2019

Public Health Res Pract

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Critics of interventions intended to improve health welfare suggest we risk creating a “nanny state” that may reduce consumer satisfaction (Grunseit et al ). However, beyond documenting the role of motivation to align with the provincial norm, the provincial norms did not impact satisfaction with the choice.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consumer Strategies to Improve the Efficacy of Posted Calorie Information: How Provincial Norms Nudge Consumers to Healthier Consumption

Otto¹,

Davis²,

Wakefield³

et al. 2019

Journal of Consumer Affairs

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Seeking to help consumers make healthier decisions, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mandated in 2010 the direct posting of calorie information on menus. Research, however, consistently demonstrates this mandate to not be as effective as intended despite required compliance in 2018. In response, the present research proposes a social marketing technique that leverages provincial norms (i.e., norms that are specific to consumption contexts) to nudge consumers toward healthier decisions. Across one field and two laboratory experiments, exposure to low‐calorie provincial norms consistently reduced calorie totals (relative to both a descriptive and no‐norm control condition). This reduced calorie total stemmed from a heightened motivation to align with the norm and did not undermine satisfaction, facilitate overindulgence on subsequent choices, or heighten guilt. Collectively, these findings offer an important means of increasing the efficacy of the FDA mandate while providing unique insight into how provincial norms nudge consumers toward healthier decision making.

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“…Some campaigns and projects will inevitably be more appealing for public relations than others, and some populations (such as workers) inevitably more attractive as subjects of action. In this issue, Grunseit et al (2019) demonstrate that the Australian public have thoughtful and contingent views on the proper role of the state in leading on public health campaigns, but that, in general, a concern about the 'nanny state' is not a major issue. This trust in public bodies to act in ways that protect the health of the public is potentially undermined by collaboration with those whose primary orientation is to profits.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

Time to interrogate corporate interests in public health?

Green

2019

Critical Public Health

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Time to interrogate corporate interests in public health? A healthy population is a public good, and in most countries, there is a consensus that it is in everybody's interests that services such as vaccinations, environmental health inspectors, sexual health provision, health promotion, or emergency planning are funded through taxation. There is, broadly, a trust in public bodies to act in ways that protect the health of the public. However, this is potentially undermined by the increasingly 'mixed economy' of public health provision (Garnett, Baeza, Trenholm, Gulliford, & Green, 2018). Public health has increasingly become the business of big (and small) business. Corporate interests in public health are diverse. Some are straightforwardly utilitarian. A healthy workforce is an efficient workforce, and it is no surprise to find growing investments in corporate well-being programmes, or in workplace health insurance linked to healthy lifestyles. Other industries create positive public health effects as a by-product of unrelated profit-maximisation strategies. Car insurers, for instance, increasingly use telematic technologies ('black boxes') so they can open up markets for young drivers. These maximise efficient management of insurance risks, and potentially generate data that can be profitably sold on, but also potentially create a public health pay-off, if telematics prove to be a more effective method of reducing road injuries than traditional public health approaches. Corporations of course also aim to shape public health policy (Williams & Nestle., 2015). In the UK, Public Health England recently came under fire from public health practitioners for planning an alcohol reduction campaign with Drinkaware, a charity whose aim is to 'make better choices about drinking'. Drinkaware is funded by the alcohol industry. Like other so-called 'harmful commodity' industriestobacco and fast food corporationsthe alcohol industry makes profits from goods which damage health. Rising concern about the role of these commodities in causing noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) led the Lancet NCD Action Group (Moodie et al., 2013) to state that collaboration with industry was both unethical and ineffective, given there were no incentives to reduce profits through self-regulation. Public Health England's decision, then, raised both ethical issues and concern about damage to credibility, as well as questions about likely effectiveness. Others, however, have taken a more pragmatic approach to industry collaboration. For instance, recent contributors to debates in the journal Addiction (Hughes et al., 2019) defended the usefulness of working with tobacco companies on less-risky alternatives to smoking, given that harm reduction is in line with public health goals. As Herrick (2016) has argued, focusing on such 'ideological schisms' hampers our ability to develop a detailed, empirical understanding of exactly what effects corporate behaviour does have on health. A focus on ethical debates about funding from specific industries hides a ra...

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Nanny or canny? Community perceptions of government intervention for preventive health

Cited by 26 publications

References 27 publications

Talking about a nanny nation: investigating the rhetoric framing public health debates in Australian news media

Talking about a nanny nation: investigating the rhetoric framing public health debates in Australian news media

Consumer Strategies to Improve the Efficacy of Posted Calorie Information: How Provincial Norms Nudge Consumers to Healthier Consumption

Time to interrogate corporate interests in public health?

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