Faculty of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK.
Int J Health Policy Manag. 2017 Jun 1;6(6):353-355. doi: 10.15171/ijhpm.2016.140.
RLabonté et al entitle their paper in this issue of the International Journal of Health Policy and Management "The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Is It Everything We Feared for Health?" Tantalisingly, they do not directly answer the question they pose, and in this commentary, we suggest that it is the wrong question; we should not 'fear' the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) at all, rather we should ask how we are to respond. The public health community is right to be concerned with the potential implications of trade and investment agreements (TIAs) for health, particularly with shifts from multilateral to regional/bilateral agreements including provisions with greater risk to public health. But it is critical to understand also the potential health benefits, and especially the mitigating policy and governance mechanisms to respond to adverse TIA implications. Given entrenched and divergent sectoral worldviews and perspectives between trade and health communities on these issues, achieving the requisite understanding will also likely require characterisation of these perspectives and identification of areas of common understanding and agreed solutions.
RLabonté 等人在本期《国际卫生政策与管理杂志》上发表的论文题为“跨太平洋伙伴关系协定：是否如我们所担心的那样对健康构成威胁？”他们没有直接回答提出的问题，在这篇评论中，我们认为这是一个错误的问题；我们根本不应该“担心”跨太平洋伙伴关系协定（TPP），而应该问我们应该如何应对。公众健康界有理由关注贸易和投资协定（TIA）对健康的潜在影响，特别是从多边到区域/双边协定的转变，包括对公共健康风险更大的条款。但同样重要的是，要了解潜在的健康益处，特别是应对不利的 TIA 影响的缓解政策和治理机制。鉴于贸易和卫生界在这些问题上存在根深蒂固的、不同的部门世界观和观点，要实现必要的理解，也可能需要对这些观点进行描述，并确定共同理解的领域和商定的解决方案。
