Quantifying the influence of the tobacco industry on EU governance: automated content analysis of the EU Tobacco Products Directive.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

The tobacco industry spends large sums lobbying the European Union (EU) institutions, yet whether such lobbying significantly affects tobacco policy is not well understood. We used novel quantitative text mining techniques to evaluate the impact of industry pressure on the contested EU Tobacco Products Directive revision.

Design

Policy positions of 18 stakeholders including the tobacco industry, health NGOs and tobacco retailers were evaluated using their text submissions to EU consultations and impact assessments. Using Wordscores to calculate word frequencies, we developed a scale ranging from 0-tobacco industry to 1-public health organisations, which was then used to track changes in the policy position of the European Commission's 2010 consultation document, it

SUBMITTER: Costa H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4215371 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature