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Fulltext Urban governance and the systems approaches to health-environment co-benefits in cities

Oliveira JA, Doll CN, Siri J, Dreyfus M, Farzaneh H, Capon A

Cad Saude Publica, 2015 Nov;31 Suppl 1:25-38.
PMID: 26648361 DOI: 10.1590/0102-311X00010015

The term "co-benefits" refers to positive outcomes accruing from a policy beyond the intended outcome, often or usually in other sectors. In the urban context, policies implemented in particular sectors (such as transport, energy or waste) often generate multiple co-benefits in other areas. Such benefits may be related to the reduction of local or global environmental impacts and also extend into the area of public health. A key to identifying and realising co-benefits is the adoption of systems approaches to understand inter-sectoral linkages and, in particular, the translation of this understanding to improved sector-specific and city governance. This paper reviews a range of policies which can yield health and climate co-benefits across different urban sectors and illustrates, through a series of cases, how taking a systems approach can lead to innovations in urban governance which aid the development of healthy and sustainable cities.

Matched MeSH terms: Health Policy*
An Integrated Systems Approach is Needed to Ensure the Sustainability of Antibiotic Effectiveness for Both Humans and Animals

So AD, Shah TA, Roach S, Ling Chee Y, Nachman KE

J Law Med Ethics, 2015;43 Suppl 3:38-45.
PMID: 26243242 DOI: 10.1111/jlme.12273

The growing demand for animal products and the widespread use of antibiotics in bringing food animals to market have heightened concerns over cross-species transmission of drug resistance. Both the biology and emerging epidemiology strongly support the need for global coordination in stemming the generation and propagation of resistance, and the patchwork of global and country-level regulations still leaves significant gaps. More importantly, discussing such a framework opens the door to taking modular steps towards solving these challenges - for example, beginning among targeted parties rather than all countries, tying accountability to financial and technical support, or taxing antibiotic use in animals to deter low-value usage of these drugs. An international agreement would allow integrating surveillance data collection, monitoring and enforcement, research into antibiotic alternatives and more sustainable approaches to agriculture, technical assistance and capacity building, and financing under the umbrella of a One Health approach.

Matched MeSH terms: Health Policy*
Redesigning healthcare systems to meet the health challenges associated with climate change in the twenty-first century

Phua KL

J Emerg Manag, 2015;13(3):255-63.
PMID: 26150369 DOI: 10.5055/jem.2015.0239

In the twenty-first century, climate change is emerging as a significant threat to the health and well-being of the public through links to the following: extreme weather events, sea level rise, temperature-related illnesses, air pollution patterns, water security, food security, vector-borne infectious diseases, and mental health effects (as a result of extreme weather events and climate change-induced population displacement). This article discusses how national healthcare systems can be redesigned through changes in its components such as human resources, facilities and technology, health information system, and health policy to meet these challenges.

Matched MeSH terms: Health Policy*
The 67th UN CND-upholding human rights in drug policy

Ahmad A, Kamarulzaman A, Kazatchkine M, Dreifuss R, Clark H

Lancet, 2024 May 11;403(10439):1851-1852.
PMID: 38734469 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(24)00763-3
Matched MeSH terms: Health Policy/legislation & jurisprudence
Legal challenges in expanding the provider base for abortion in Asia

Jain D

Int J Gynaecol Obstet, 2025 Mar;168(3):1345-1351.
PMID: 39711117 DOI: 10.1002/ijgo.16119

In Asia as elsewhere, strict regulations on who is authorized to provide abortion services and to prescribe or dispense medical abortion adversely impact access, especially for marginalized persons and residents in remote areas. The WHO's 2022 Abortion Care Guideline provides an important framework for states to formulate and implement policies to serve sexual and reproductive rights of access to abortion services. The Guideline calls for decriminalization of abortion services to increase authorization to provide abortion services and to promote self-managed medical abortion. This review examines the legal and policy frameworks of Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Nepal against the WHO Guideline. Legal and policy reforms successfully introduced in Bangladesh and Nepal to grow the provider base allow healthcare systems to expand safe abortion. This review outlines further challenges where the WHO Guideline on decriminalization and availability of medical abortion is disregarded and advocates a reproductive justice approach promoting egalitarian access to services even among the most marginalized.

Matched MeSH terms: Health Policy/legislation & jurisprudence
Understanding the Politics of Food Regulation and Public Health: An Analysis of Codex Standard-Setting Processes on Food Labelling

Boatwright M, Lawrence M, Carriedo A, Slater S, McCoy D, Northcott T, et al.

Int J Health Policy Manag, 2024;13:8310.
PMID: 39620519 DOI: 10.34172/ijhpm.8310

BACKGROUND: The importance of the international food regulatory system to global health, is often overlooked. There are calls to reform this system to promote healthy and sustainable food systems centred on the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex), the United Nation's (UN's) standard-setting body. Yet this presents a significant political challenge, given Codex has historically prioritized food safety risks over wider harms to public health, and is dominated by powerful food exporting nations and industry groups with a primary interest in trade expansion. To better understand this challenge, we examine who participates and contests Codex standards, using the development of the new Guidelines on Front-of-pack Nutrition Labelling (FOPNL) as a case study.
METHODS: The study involved: (i) collecting Codex Committee on Food Labelling (CCFL) documents (2016-2023); (ii) identification, categorization, and enumeration of actors involved in the development of the Guidelines; and (iii) guided by a constructivist framework, analysis of how actors framed and contested key provisions of the Guidelines.
RESULTS: Country representation was skewed towards high-income (47.9%). Member state delegations were dominated by non-health ministries (59.8%) and industry actors (16.1%). Industry actors comprised the large majority of observers (84.2%) and civil society actors representing public health interests the least (12.2%). Commercial actors used frames supporting positive FOPNL messages (eg, low in salt) opposing negative ones (eg, "high-in" sugar warnings) and called for product exemptions (eg, sports foods and baby foods). Public health actors used frames supporting simplified FOPNL to reduce consumer confusion, that hold up public health goals, and prevent inappropriate marketing.
CONCLUSION: Participation in the Guidelines development process suggests stronger preferences for trade facilitation and commerce over public health. Ambitions to reform the international food regulatory system may require an examination of who participates and how to address this asymmetrical representation of interests. These results suggest the need to greatly strengthen public health representation at Codex.

Matched MeSH terms: Nutrition Policy/legislation & jurisprudence
Generational Perception Towards the Tobacco Generation End Game Policy in Malaysia

Abdul Raob NA, Mohd Radzi NA, Nik Mohamed MH, Md Sabri BA

J Community Health, 2026 Feb;51(1):185-198.
PMID: 41175332 DOI: 10.1007/s10900-025-01514-1

The Generation End Game (GEG) policy plan represents a groundbreaking initiative by the Malaysian government aimed at creating a smoke-free generation. This cross-sectional study aims to explore the factors influencing knowledge, attitude and perception of Malaysian adolescents towards the policy. A quantitative pre- and post-test survey was conducted among 731 adolescents born in 2007 and above across Malaysia, following a brief informational introduction to the GEG policy. This study utilized ANCOVA and binomial logistic regression to assess the association between various sociodemographic factors with knowledge, attitude and perceptions of the GEG. The results reveal that gender, tobacco-related experiences, peer influences, and health-related beliefs significantly impacted perception outcomes (p

Matched MeSH terms: Smoke-Free Policy*
Fulltext Constancy and Change: Key Issues in Housing and Health Research, 1987-2017

Lawrence RJ

Int J Environ Res Public Health, 2017 07 12;14(7).
PMID: 28704943 DOI: 10.3390/ijerph14070763

The low impact of scientific research on the relations between housing and health during the last 30 years can be attributed to a number of reasons. First, statistical analyses have meant to improve understanding of the relations between what are interpreted and measured as causal factors. However, any single statistical approach fails to account for the dynamic non-linear relations between multiple factors and therefore cannot analyze systemic complexity. Second, there has been too little accumulation and validation of knowledge from scientific research owing to the dominance of cross-sectional studies, and the lack of coordinated research agendas using these approaches in order to confirm empirical findings. Hence, there is little evidence indicating that public policies in both the housing and the public health sectors in specific localities have benefited from the accumulated evidence of empirical research. Third, the findings from empirical studies have been published in academic journals and monographs but rarely disseminated to actors and institutions in the public and private sectors. Hence housing and health research and policy formulation have not been consolidated during the last three decades. The author of this communication argues for a radical shift from conventional disciplinary and multi-disciplinary contributions to transdisciplinary research programmes and projects that formulate and apply innovative approaches founded on conceptual frameworks that apply systems thinking for the integration of knowledge and know-how of researchers, policy makers, and professional practitioners in precise localities.

Matched MeSH terms: Public Policy
Fulltext Measuring and explaining multi-directional inefficiency in the Malaysian dairy industry

Mohd Suhaimi NAB, de Mey Y, Oude Lansink A

Br Food J, 2017;119(12):2788-2803.
PMID: 29720740 DOI: 10.1108/BFJ-11-2016-0549

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to measure the technical inefficiency of dairy farms and subsequently investigate the factors affecting technical inefficiency in the Malaysian dairy industry.
Design/methodology/approach: This study uses multi-directional efficiency analysis to measure the technical inefficiency scores on a sample of 200 farm observations and single-bootstrap truncated regression model to define factors affecting technical inefficiency.
Findings: Managerial and program inefficiency scores are presented for intensive and semi-intensive production systems. The results reveal marked differences in the inefficiency scores across inputs and between production systems.
Practical implications: Intensive systems generally have lowest managerial and program inefficiency scores in the Malaysian dairy farming sector. Policy makers could use this information to advise dairy farmers to convert their farming system to the intensive system.
Social implications: The results suggest that the Malaysian Government should redefine its policy for providing farm finance and should target young farmers when designing training and extension programs in order to improve the performance of the dairy sector.
Originality/value: The existing literature on Southeast Asian dairy farming has neither focused on investigating input-specific efficiency nor on comparing managerial and program efficiency. This paper aims to fill this gap.

Matched MeSH terms: Policy
Fulltext Technological change as a mediator of employee competency profiling in selected industries in Kuching, Sarawak: a structural equation modeling approach

Nadri Aetis Heromi Basmawi, Hasbee Usop

Journal of Cognitive Sciences & Human Development, 2016;1(2):56-70.
MyJurnal

This study aims to investigate competency profiling and determine if technological change act as a mediator in the relationship between the identified factors and employee competency in selected industries in Kuching, Sarawak. It is also to develop the best fit model based on the variables selected. The four identified variables are teamwork, organizational culture, change management, and technological change. The sample of this study were 302 respondents selected through a simple random sampling. The findings showed that there is a positive effect between teamwork, organizational culture, change management, and technological change as mediator towards employee competency. This study provides positive implications, such as, improving competency process in organizational setting, improving policy and related action plan regarding human resource practices on competency.

Matched MeSH terms: Policy
Fulltext Making Fair Choices on the Path to Universal Health Coverage: Applying Principles to Difficult Cases

Voorhoeve A, Tan-Torres Edejer T, Kapiriri L, Norheim OF, Snowden J, Basenya O, et al.

Health Syst Reform, 2017 Oct 02;3(4):301-312.
PMID: 30359178 DOI: 10.1080/23288604.2017.1324938

Abstract-Progress toward universal health coverage (UHC) requires making difficult trade-offs. In this journal, Dr. Margaret Chan, the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, has endorsed the principles for making such decisions put forward by the WHO Consultative Group on Equity and UHC. These principles include maximizing population health, priority for the worse off, and shielding people from health-related financial risks. But how should one apply these principles in particular cases, and how should one adjudicate between them when their demands conflict? This article by some members of the Consultative Group and a diverse group of health policy professionals addresses these questions. It considers three stylized versions of actual policy dilemmas. Each of these cases pertains to one of the three key dimensions of progress toward UHC: which services to cover first, which populations to prioritize for coverage, and how to move from out-of-pocket expenditures to prepayment with pooling of funds. Our cases are simplified to highlight common trade-offs. Though we make specific recommendations, our primary aim is to demonstrate both the form and substance of the reasoning involved in striking a fair balance between competing interests on the road to UHC.

Matched MeSH terms: Health Policy
Revisiting the social cost of carbon after INDC implementation in Malaysia: 2050

Sarkar MSK, Al-Amin AQ, Filho WL

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2019 Feb;26(6):6000-6013.
PMID: 30612378 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-018-3947-1

This article projects the social cost of carbon (SCC) and other related consequences of climate change by using Malaysia's intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) and climate vision 2040 (CV2040) by 2050. It compares the projections derived from the Dynamic Integrated Model of the Climate and Economy (DICME) based on the respective INDC and CV2040 scenario. The results reveal that industrial emissions would incur a substantial increase every 5 years under the scenario CV2040, while Malaysia would experience lower industrial emissions in the coming years under the scenario INDC. Emission intensity in Malaysia will be 0.61 and 0.59 tons/capita in 2030 for scenario CV2040 and scenario INDC respectively. Malaysia would face climate damage of MYR456 billion and MYR 49 billion by 2050 under CV2040 and INDC scenario respectively. However, climate damage could be much lower if the INDC regime were adopted, as this scenario would decrease climatic impacts over time. The estimated SSC per ton of CO2 varies between MYR74 and MYR97 for scenario CV2040 and MYR44 and MYR62 for scenario INDC in 2030 and 2050 respectively. Considering different aspects, including industrial emissions, damage cost, and social cost of carbon, INDC is the best policy compared to CV2040. Thus, Malaysia could achieve its emissions reduction target by implementing INDC by 2050.

Matched MeSH terms: Policy
Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) Analysis of Algal Fuels

Hosseinzadeh-Bandbafha H, Tabatabaei M, Aghbashlo M, Sulaiman A, Ghassemi A

Methods Mol Biol, 2020;1980:121-151.
PMID: 30838603 DOI: 10.1007/7651_2018_204

Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is one of the most attractive tools employed nowadays by environmental policy-makers as well as business decision-makers to ensure environmentally sustainable production/consumption of various goods/services. LCA is a systematic, rigorous, and standardized approach aimed at quantifying resources consumed/depleted, pollutants released, and the related environmental and health impacts through the course of consumption and production of goods/service. Algal fuels are no exception and their environmental sustainability could be well scrutinized using the LCA methodology. In line with that, this chapter is devoted to present guidelines on the technical aspects of LCA application in algal fuels while elaborating on major standards used, i.e., ISO 14040 and 14044 standards. Overall, LCA practitioners as well as technical experts dealing with algal fuels in both the public and private sectors could be the main target audience for these guidelines.

Matched MeSH terms: Environmental Policy
Energy innovations and environmental sustainability in the U.S.: The roles of immigration and economic expansion using a maximum likelihood method

Solarin SA, Bello MO

Sci Total Environ, 2020 Apr 10;712:135594.
PMID: 31787295 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.135594

Environmental degradation remains a huge obstacle to sustainable development. Research on the factors that promote or degrade the environment has been extensively conducted. However, one important variable that has conspicuously received very limited attention is energy innovations. To address this gap in the literature, this study investigated the effects of energy innovations on environmental quality in the U.S. for the period 1974 to 2016. We have incorporated GDP and immigration as additional regressors. Three indices comprising of CO2 emissions, ecological footprint and carbon footprint were used to proxy environmental degradation. The cointegration tests established long-run relationships between the variables. Using a maximum likelihood approach with a break, the results showed evidence that energy innovations significantly improve environmental quality while GDP degrades the quality of the environment, and immigration has no significant effect on the environment. Policy implications of the results are discussed in the body of the manuscript.

Matched MeSH terms: Policy
Fulltext Panel Dataset of Ethical Commitment Disclosures in Malaysia

Hashim HA, Abidin AFZ, Salleh Z, Devi SS

Data Brief, 2020 Jun;30:105624.
PMID: 32395587 DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2020.105624

Panel dataset in this article contains information on the ethical commitment disclosures of Malaysian publicly listed companies. The data presented is related to the research article entitled "Ethical Practice Disclosure of Malaysian Public Listed Companies" [1]. In examining the level of ethical commitment disclosures, content analysis is performed involving 1,115 annual reports for five year periods (2012 - 2016). The annual reports are gathered from Main Market of Bursa Malaysia website. Information on ethical commitment disclosures are extracted from the annual reports. The data are collected using Ethical Commitment Index (ECI) comprising six themes; corporate ethics values, action to promote ethics, whistle-blowing policy, code of ethics, sustainability practices, and ethics committee. This dataset is useful as an indicator of the companies' ethical commitment reflecting ethical climate in Malaysian public listed companies.

Matched MeSH terms: Policy
Non-linear threshold effect of financial development on renewable energy consumption: evidence from panel smooth transition regression approach

Raza SA, Shah N, Qureshi MA, Qaiser S, Ali R, Ahmed F

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2020 Sep;27(25):32034-32047.
PMID: 32506406 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-020-09520-7

Financial development is identified as one of the significant factors that affect energy consumption and has been widely discussed in the literature. However, the association between financial development and renewable energy consumption is still at its earlier stage and is limitedly explored. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the non-linear association between financial development and renewable energy consumption in the top renewable energy consumption countries. The study utilized the newly introduced econometric technique panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) model with two regimes on annual panel data consisted of years 1997-2017. The result confirmed that all the financial development indicators increase renewable energy consumption but affect renewable energy consumption differently. Moreover, the economic growth and industrial structure showed a positive and significant association in both regimes, whereas the population showed a negative relationship with renewable energy consumption in a low growth regime but the association becomes positive in high growth regimes. The study suggested several policies for the top renewable consumption countries.

Matched MeSH terms: Policy
Towards connecting carbon emissions with asymmetric changes in economic growth: evidence from linear and nonlinear ARDL approaches

Baloch A, Shah SZ, Habibullah MS, Rasheed B

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2021 Mar;28(12):15320-15338.
PMID: 33236304 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-020-11672-5

The well-established emissions-growth debate relies on the symmetric nexus between CO2 emissions and economic growth, thereby ignoring a fundamental component of macro economy in the form of asymmetric relation. This paper considers how CO2 emissions respond asymmetrically to changes in economic growth. While utilizing both linear and nonlinear time series approaches for an environmentally exposed country, Pakistan over the period 1971-2018, we find convincing evidence that CO2 emissions rise more rapidly during negative shocks to economic growth than increase during economic expansions. Thus, contrary to what has previously been reported, the effect is strong as holds both at short run and long run. This is partly due to the increase in informal sector as GDP declines. Our estimated results show that accounting for the shadow economy results a higher magnitude of CO2 emissions due to decrease in economic growth, thus question the traditional symmetric decoupling of economic growth and CO2 emissions. The estimated results are robust to alternative estimators such as fully modified least squares (FMOLS) and dynamic OLS (DOLS). Thus, the findings of this study call for a re-thinking on climate policy design that rarely pays attention to the aforementioned outcomes due to fall in economic growth.

Matched MeSH terms: Policy
Fulltext The role of partnership in capacity building in public health nutrition - experience of Malaysia

Awin N

Malays J Nutr, 2002 Mar;8(1):99-107.
PMID: 22692442 MyJurnal

Public Health emphasizes the plurality of the determinants of health of individuals, families and communities. Nutrition, as a major determinant of health, is itself influenced by a multitude of determinants that are under the purview of several agencies. Thus, inter-sectoral collaboration among the relevant agencies is imperative for promoting optimal health and nutrition such a partnership is manifested in the development and implementation of the National Plan of Nutrition (NPAN) of Malaysia pursuant to the International Conference on Nutrition (ICN) held in 1992. While the overall coordination of NPAN is at the Family Development Division in the Ministry of Health, the body that sees to the coordination is again a multi-agency group in the form of the National Coordinating Committee for Food and Nutrition (NCCFN). The NCCFN has representation for the nine thrust areas of NPAN that cut across various sectors including health, agriculture, education, community development and economic planning. Capacity building is a central strategy in the NPAN through the creation of positions and special budgetary allocations, and the implementation of activities including research, training, development of dietary guidelines and the National Nutrition Policy. This policy will be a major driving force for strengthening and building of capacity for nutrition-related activities, and more importantly it will facilitate a coordinated and coherent approach to capacity building, including sharing of resources.

Matched MeSH terms: Nutrition Policy
Clandestine labor migration to Taiwan

Tsay C

Asian Pac Migr J, 1992;1(3-4):637-55.
PMID: 12285774

"Illegal migration to Taiwan is a recent phenomenon but with a rapid rate of increase. Most illegal foreign workers enter on visitor's visas and overstay. This paper's detailed analysis of official data reveals that Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand are the major sources, providing a stock of mostly male workers numbering around 40,000. Sociodemographic and attitudinal changes among Taiwanese workers coupled with labor shortages in low-skilled jobs are pressuring the Taiwanese government to formulate plans for a systematic importation of foreign labor."

Matched MeSH terms: Policy Making*; Public Policy*
Recent and prospective population trends in Malaysia

Jones GW, Tan PC

J Southeast Asian Stud, 1985 Sep;16(2):262-80.
PMID: 12267554
Matched MeSH terms: Public Policy*; Family Planning Policy*

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