In June 2024, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) launched a virtual course on effective regulatory nutrition policies to strengthen the capacity of countries to improve food environments and tackle obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The course builds on the already significant movement to advance healthy food policies in Latin America and the Caribbean and was developed to address a need identified by PAHO to equip countries with skills to overcome technical, legal, political and industry barriers to adopting and implementing these laws and regulations.
In the last few decades, countries in the Latin America and Caribbean region have faced an increase in obesity and diet-related NCDs associated with high mortality and morbidity rates. These threaten the health, well-being and development prospects in the entire region. The widespread availability, affordability and promotion of ultra-processed food and drink products are major drivers of this shift in diet patterns and increasing NCDs. This is why it’s critical to focus on creating food environments that make healthier food options available and accessible for all.
The Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) provided support for the course development launch. GHAI’s is committed to strengthening advocacy capacity. Tailored trainings like this one will enable organizations to promote evidence-based healthy food policies.
The course is designed to build technical understanding on how to design and advance healthy food policies, including throughout the adoption, implementation and monitoring stages. Advocates can apply these learnings to improve the effectiveness of their advocacy work. The course materials and other PAHO learning resources like short videos and technical documents serve as a resource to inform policymakers about the policies, the policy design and the need for these policies. It also provides resources for advocates and policymakers on how to safeguard the policy process from interference by actors opposing these effective measures.
Since it launched in June, more than 250 individuals from across the globe have registered for the multi-module course. An overwhelming majority of participants responded that the course, topics and resources were useful. The course’s five modules cover the following topics: front of package warning labelling, sugar-sweetened beverage taxation, marketing of ultra-processed and process foods and non-alcoholic drink products, the regulation of food and beverage in schools and other settings and preventing and managing conflict of interest. This is a self-learning course so participants can set their own pace. They should expect to invest about 10 hours to complete it. Through continued support from GHAI, PAHO will soon rollout Spanish-language and Portuguese-language versions of the course as well.
