Potential impacts of policies to reduce purchasing of ultra-processed foods in Mexico at different stages of the social transition: an agent-based modelling approach
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Date
2022
Authors
Langellier, B.A.
Stankov, I.
Hammond, R.A.
Bilal, U.
Auchincloss, A.H.
Barrientos Gutierrez, T.
Cardoso, L.D.O.
Diez Roux, A.V.
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Public Health Nutrition, 2022; 25(6):1711-1719
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Abstract
Objectives: To develop a simulation framework for assessing how combinations of taxes, nutrition warning labels and advertising levels could affect purchasing of ultra-processed foods (UPF) in Latin American countries and to understand whether policies reinforce or reduce pre-existing social disparities in UPF consumption.
Design: We developed an agent-based simulation model using international evidence regarding the effect of price, nutrition warning labels and advertising on UPF purchasing.
Setting: We estimated policy effects in scenarios representing two stages of the ‘social transition’ in UPF purchasing: (1) a pre-transition scenario, where UPF purchasing is higher among high-income households, similar to patterns in Mexico; and (2) a post-transition scenario where UPF purchasing is highest among low-income households, similar to patterns in Chile.
Participants: A population of 1000 individual agents with levels of age, income, educational attainment and UPF purchasing similar to adult women in Mexico.
Results: A 20 % tax would decrease purchasing by 24 % relative to baseline in both the pre- and post-transition scenarios, an effect that is similar in magnitude to that of a nutrition warning label policy. A 50 % advertising increase or decrease had a comparatively small effect. Nutrition warning labels were most effective among those with higher levels of educational attainment. Labelling reduced inequities in the pre-transition scenario (i.e. highest UPF purchasing among the highest socio-economic group) but widened inequities in the post-transition scenario.
Conclusions: Effective policy levers are available to reduce UPF purchasing, but policymakers should anticipate that equity impacts will differ depending on existing social patterns in UPF purchasing.
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Data source: Supplementary material, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980021004833
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Copyright 2023 Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Nutrition Society. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Access Condition Notes: This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence, which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.