Ronald Labonté

[ 1 ] - From Mid-Level Policy Analysis to Macro-Level Political Economy; Comment on “Developing a Framework for a Program Theory-Based Approach to Evaluating Policy Processes and Outcomes: Health in All Policies in South Australia”

This latest contribution by the evaluation research team at Flinders University/Southgate Institute on their multiyear study of South Australia’s Health in All Policies (HiAP) initiative is simultaneously frustrating, exemplary, and partial. It is frustrating because it does not yet reveal the extent to which the initiative achieved its stated outcomes; that awaits further papers. It is exempla...

[ 2 ] - Framing Political Change: Can a Left Populism Disrupt the Rise of the Reactionary Right?; Comment on “Politics, Power, Poverty and Global Health: Systems and Frames”

Solomon Benatar offers an important critique of the limited frame that sets the boundaries of much of what is referred to as ‘global health.’ In placing his comments within a criticism of increasing poverty (or certainly income and wealth inequalities) and the decline in our environmental commons, he locates our health inequities within the pathology of our present global economy. In that respe...

[ 3 ] - The TPP Is Dead, Long Live the TPP? A Response to Recent Commentaries

[ 4 ] - Health Promotion in an Age of Normative Equity and Rampant Inequality

The world was different when the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion was released 30 years ago. Concerns over the environment and what we now call the ‘social determinants of health’ were prominent in 1986. But the acceleration of ecological crises and economic inequalities since then, in a more complex and multi-polar world, pose dramatically new challenges for those committed to the original ...

[ 5 ] - The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Is It Everything We Feared for Health?

Background Negotiations surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade and investment agreement have recently concluded. Although trade and investment agreements, part of a broader shift to global economic integration, have been argued to be vital to improved economic growth, health, and general welfare, these agreements have increasingly come under scrutiny for their direct and indirect...

[ 6 ] - Monitoring Frameworks for Universal Health Coverage: What About High-Income Countries?

Implementing universal health coverage (UHC) is widely perceived to be central to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and is a work program priority of the World Health Organization (WHO). Much has already been written about how low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) can monitor progress towards UHC, with various UHC monitoring frameworks available in the literature. However, ...

[ 7 ] - Neoliberalism 4.0: The Rise of Illiberal Capitalism; Comment on “How Neoliberalism Is Shaping the Supply of Unhealthy Commodities and What This Means for NCD Prevention”

Neoliberal logic and institutional lethargy may well explain part of the reason why governments pay little attention to how their economic and development policies negatively affect health outcomes associated with the global diffusion of unhealthy commodities. In calling attention to this the authors encourage health advocates to consider strategies other than just regu...