Urbanization and international trade and investment policies as determinants of noncommunicable diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa

There are three dominant globalization pathways affecting noncommunicable diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): urbanization, trade liberalization, and investment liberalization. Urbanization carries potential health benefits due to improved access to an increased variety of food imports, although for the growing number of urban poor, this has often meant increased reliance on cheap, highly processed food commodities. Reduced barriers to trade have eased the importation of such commodities, while investment liberalization has increased corporate consolidation over global and domestic food chains. Higher profit margins on processed foods have promoted the creation of ‘obesogenic’ environments, which through progressively integrated global food systems have been increasingly ‘exported’ to developing nations. This article explores globalization processes, the food environment, and dietary health outcomes in SSA through the use of trend analyses and structural equation modelling. The findings are considered in the context of global barriers and facilitators for healthy public policy.Department of HE and Training approved lis

A Synthetic Indicator of Progress Towards the Millennium Development Goals 2, 3 and 4 in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) of Asia

The aim of this article is to measure progress towards the United Nations’ (UN’s) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2, 3 and 4 in Asia’s least developed countries (LDCs) by studying a group of countries that suffer particularly intensely from poverty. To achieve this goal, we use Pena’s distance method (DP2) to compose a synthetic indicator of the variables of MDG levels for MDGs 2, 3 and 4 in Asia’s LDCs through territorial classification of the DP2 for 2013, the last year for which data are available. The index also permits study of the impact of each variable individually to determine countries’ disparities in the variables associated with three of the MDGs. This analysis is particularly useful for the post-2015 agenda in a scenario such as Asia’s LDCs, which are beset by profound social and economic inequalities