Final published version
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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Fishing for health
T2 - Do the world’s national policies for fisheries and aquaculture align with those for nutrition?
AU - Koehn, John Zachary
AU - Allison, Edward H
AU - Villeda, Karen
AU - Chen, Zelin
AU - Nixon, Marisa
AU - Crigler, Emily
AU - Zhao, Lily
AU - Chow, Michelle
AU - Vaitla, Bapu
AU - Thilsted, Shakuntala H
AU - Scholtens, Joeri
AU - Hicks, Christina C
AU - Andrew, Neil
PY - 2022/1/31
Y1 - 2022/1/31
N2 - Aquatic foods are rich in micronutrients essential to human health, and fisheries and aquaculture are increasingly recognized for their capacity to contribute to reducing global micronutrient deficiencies and diet-based health risks. Whether fisheries and aquaculture sector and public health nutrition policies align to meet this goal, however, is unclear. Do fisheries and aquaculture policies have explicit nutrition and public health objectives? Do public health nutrition policies recognize the contribution of aquatic foods? Using content analysis, we assessed the alignment of objectives in national fisheries and public health nutrition policies. We further determined conditions associated with varying levels of cohesion among policies in these sectors or domains. We found that 77 of 158 national fisheries policies identified nutrition as a key objective in the sector, and 68 of 165 public health nutrition policies identified the importance of fish and shellfish consumption as key objectives. More recent policies were associated with improved coherence among sectors. International organization presence in policy development was also associated with greater coherence. Countries with higher overweight prevalence had fisheries and public health nutrition policies that were not aligned. There has been a promising recent trend for improved alignment of objectives between fisheries and public health nutrition policies, but more targeted and systematic policy approaches are needed to realize the potential contribution of nutrient-rich fish and shellfish to healthier food systems.
AB - Aquatic foods are rich in micronutrients essential to human health, and fisheries and aquaculture are increasingly recognized for their capacity to contribute to reducing global micronutrient deficiencies and diet-based health risks. Whether fisheries and aquaculture sector and public health nutrition policies align to meet this goal, however, is unclear. Do fisheries and aquaculture policies have explicit nutrition and public health objectives? Do public health nutrition policies recognize the contribution of aquatic foods? Using content analysis, we assessed the alignment of objectives in national fisheries and public health nutrition policies. We further determined conditions associated with varying levels of cohesion among policies in these sectors or domains. We found that 77 of 158 national fisheries policies identified nutrition as a key objective in the sector, and 68 of 165 public health nutrition policies identified the importance of fish and shellfish consumption as key objectives. More recent policies were associated with improved coherence among sectors. International organization presence in policy development was also associated with greater coherence. Countries with higher overweight prevalence had fisheries and public health nutrition policies that were not aligned. There has been a promising recent trend for improved alignment of objectives between fisheries and public health nutrition policies, but more targeted and systematic policy approaches are needed to realize the potential contribution of nutrient-rich fish and shellfish to healthier food systems.
KW - Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
KW - Aquatic Science
KW - Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
KW - Oceanography
KW - aquatic foods
KW - content analysis
KW - food system
KW - nutrition
KW - policy
KW - public health nutrition
U2 - 10.1111/faf.12603
DO - 10.1111/faf.12603
M3 - Journal article
VL - 23
SP - 125
EP - 142
JO - Fish and Fisheries
JF - Fish and Fisheries
SN - 1467-2960
IS - 1
ER -