ReviewPublic health nutrition2016
Playing the policy game: a review of the barriers to and enablers of nutrition policy change.
Review in Public health nutrition, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 87 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
87 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Barriers and facilitators to implementation of healthy food and drink policies in public sector workplaces: a systematic literature review.Nutrition reviews · 2024Pooled it
- An umbrella review of the acceptability of fiscal and pricing policies to reduce diet-related noncommunicable disease.Nutrition reviews · 2023Pooled it
- Identifying barriers and facilitators in the development and implementation of government-led food environment policies: a systematic review.Nutrition reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Communicating evidence about the environment's role in obesity and support for government policies to tackle obesity: a systematic review with meta-analysis.Health psychology review · 2022Pooled it
- Impact of health warning labels on selection and consumption of food and alcohol products: systematic review with meta-analysis.Health psychology review · 2021Pooled it
- Impact of health warning labels and calorie labels on selection and purchasing of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks: A randomized controlled trial.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2023Trial
- Public support for policies to improve population and planetary health: A population-based online experiment assessing impact of communicating evidence of multiple versus single benefits.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2022Trial
- Health co-benefits of sustainable dietary transitions to reduced red and processed meat intake in the United Kingdom: a modelling study.European journal of nutrition · 2026Article
- Understanding barriers to systems change among regional Western Australian food security initiative leaders.Health promotion international · 2026Article
- Public knowledge of ultra-processed foods: Insights from a national survey of Australian adults.Nutrition journal · 2026Article
- Local government policies restricting unhealthy outdoor food advertising in Australia: stakeholder perspectives identify political willingness is key to overcoming barriers.Health research policy and systems · 2026Article
- The case for mandatory reporting to enable targets for healthy and environmentally sustainable food: means, motive and opportunity.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- Towards an international research agenda for public health advocacy: Practice, preparedness and knowledge gaps.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
- Mapping how responsibility for poor diets is framed in the United Kingdom: a scoping review.Public health nutrition · 2025Article
- Looking towards the sweet, sweet future: a political economy analysis of sugar and nutrition policy in Indonesia.Public health nutrition · 2025Article
- Policy changes to US federal infant feeding laws and regulations from 2014-2023: evidence that the 2022 infant formula shortage had a narrow policy impact.Health affairs scholar · 2025Article
- Food Rx: Integrating horticulture research to improve nutrition and health.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Exploring barriers and facilitators to integrating health equity into health and climate change policies in Nepal - a qualitative study among federal level stakeholders.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Public support for unhealthy food marketing policies in Australia: A cross-sectional analysis of the International Food Policy Study 2022.Australian and New Zealand journal of public health · 2025Article
- School-based nutrition education programs alone are not cost effective for preventing childhood obesity: a microsimulation study.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2025Article
27 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo progress nutrition policy change and develop more effective advocates, it is useful to consider real-world factors and practical experiences of past advocacy efforts to determine the key barriers to and enablers of nutrition policy change. The present review aimed to identify and synthesize the enablers of and barriers to public policy change within the field of nutrition.
designElectronic databases were searched systematically for studies examining policy making in public health nutrition. An interpretive synthesis was undertaken.
settingInternational, national, state and local government jurisdictions within high-income, democratic countries.
resultsSixty-three studies were selected for inclusion. Numerous themes were identified explaining the barriers to and enablers of policy change, all of which fell under the overarching category of 'political will', underpinned by a second major category, 'public will'. Sub-themes, including pressure from industry, neoliberal ideology, use of emotions and values, and being visible, were prevalent in describing links between public will, political will and policy change.
conclusionsThe frustration around lack of public policy change in nutrition frequently stems from a belief that policy making is a rational process in which evidence is used to assess the relative costs and benefits of options. The findings from the present review confirm that evidence is only one component of influencing policy change. For policy change to occur there needs to be the political will, and often the public will, for the proposed policy problem and solution. The review presents a suite of enablers which can assist health professionals to influence political and public will in future advocacy efforts.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.