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

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Costa, Hélia Gilmore, Anna B Peeters, Silvy McKee, Martin Stuckler, David
Copyright Year	2014
Abstract	ObjectiveThe 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.DesignPolicy 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, its 2012 final proposal and the European Parliament and Council's approved legislation in March 2014.ResultsSeveral stakeholders’ positions were closer to the tobacco industry than that of health NGOs, including retailers (ω=0.35), trade unions (ω=0.34) and publishers (ω=0.33 and ω=0.40). Over time the European Commission's position shifted towards the tobacco industry from ω=0.52 (95% CI 0.50 to 0.54) to ω=0.40 (95% CI 0.39 to 0.42). This transition reflected an increasing use of words pertaining to business and the economy in the Commission's document. Our findings were robust to alternative methods of scoring policy positions in EU documents.ConclusionsUsing quantitative text mining techniques, we observed that tobacco industry lobbying activity at the EU was associated with significant policy shifts in the EU Tobacco Products Directive legislation towards the tobacco industry's submissions. In the light of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, additional governance strategies are needed to prevent undue influence of the tobacco industry on EU policy making.
Related Links	https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC4215371&blobtype=pdf
ISSN	09644563
Journal	Tobacco Control [Tob Control]
Volume Number	23
DOI	10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2014-051822
PubMed Central reference number	PMC4215371
Issue Number	6
PubMed reference number	25124165
e-ISSN	14683318
Language	English
Publisher	BMJ Publishing Group
Publisher Date	2014-08-13
Publisher Place	BMA House, Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9JR
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions
Subject Keyword	Tobacco Industry Public Policy Tobacco Industry Documents
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Health (social science) Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health