ReviewNutrients2014
To legislate or not to legislate? A comparison of the UK and South African approaches to the development and implementation of salt reduction programs.
Review in Nutrients, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Identifying barriers and facilitators in the development and implementation of government-led food environment policies: a systematic review.Nutrition reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Monitoring and implementation of salt reduction initiatives in Africa: A systematic review.Journal of clinical hypertension (Greenwich, Conn.) · 2020Pooled it
- Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviours Related to Dietary Salt Intake in High-Income Countries: a Systematic Review.Current nutrition reports · 2018Pooled it
- Salt Reduction Initiatives around the World - A Systematic Review of Progress towards the Global Target.PloS one · 2015Pooled it
- Stakeholder perspectives on scaling up potassium-enriched salt to reduce cardiovascular disease in Australia: a qualitative study.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Strengthening salt reduction policy for Malaysia through proposed maximum salt targets of selected processed food groups.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Determining food industry compliance to mandatory sodium limits: successes and challenges from the South African experience.Public health nutrition · 2023Article
- Article
- Initiatives to Reduce the Content of Sodium in Food Products and Meals and Improve the Population's Health.Nutrients · 2023Review
- Reducing salt intake with umami: A secondary analysis of data in the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey.Food science & nutrition · 2023Article
- Prioritizing population-based nutrition-related interventions to prevent and control hypertension in Iran: a multi-criteria decision-making approach.BMC medical research methodology · 2022Review
- Implementing effective salt reduction programs and policies in low- and middle-income countries: learning from retrospective policy analysis in Argentina, Mongolia, South Africa and Vietnam.Public health nutrition · 2022Article
- Non-communicable disease policy implementation in Libya: A mixed methods assessment.PLOS global public health · 2022Article
- Article
- Barriers and Facilitators to Implementing Reduced-Sodium Salts as a Population-Level Intervention: A Qualitative Study.Nutrients · 2021Article
- Packaged food supply in Fiji: nutrient levels, compliance with sodium targets and adherence to labelling regulations.Public health nutrition · 2021Article
- Effect of South Africa's interim mandatory salt reduction programme on urinary sodium excretion and blood pressure.Preventive medicine reports · 2021Article
- Consumer preferences for low-salt foods: a Danish case study based on a comprehensive supermarket intervention.Public health nutrition · 2021Article
- A Review Study of a Green Diet and Healthy Ageing.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Review
- Towards Population Salt Reduction to Control High Blood Pressure in Ghana: A Policy Direction.Current developments in nutrition · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The World Health Organization promotes salt reduction as a best-buy strategy to reduce chronic diseases, and Member States have agreed to a 30% reduction target in mean population salt intake by 2025. Whilst the UK has made the most progress on salt reduction, South Africa was the first country to pass legislation for salt levels in a range of processed foods. This paper compares the process of developing salt reduction strategies in both countries and highlights lessons for other countries. Like the UK, the benefits of salt reduction were being debated in South Africa long before it became a policy priority. Whilst salt reduction was gaining a higher profile internationally, undoubtedly, local research to produce context-specific, domestic costs and outcome indicators for South Africa was crucial in influencing the decision to legislate. In the UK, strong government leadership and extensive advocacy activities initiated in the early 2000s have helped drive the voluntary uptake of salt targets by the food industry. It is too early to say which strategy will be most effective regarding reductions in population-level blood pressure. Robust monitoring and transparent mechanisms for holding the industry accountable will be key to continued progress in each of the countries.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.