Negotiating Healthy Trade in Australia

This report published by the Centre for Health Equity Training Research and Evaluation provides an overview of the dimensions of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) relevant to health, the process and findings of the Health Impact Assessment (HIA) - including characterising the potential health impacts based on the literature and stakeholder input - and recommendations to the Australian Government to avoid or mitigate potential harms from the TPP. The authors intend for the HIA to inform negotiations and health sector advocacy on the TPP.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a large regional trade agreement currently in the final stages of negotiation and involves countries around the Pacific Rim, including Australia.

The agreement is being negotiated under conditions of confidentiality, and consequently negotiating documents are not made public and limited information is available.

During negotiations, an Health Impact Assessment (HIA) was undertaken on provisions in the TPP, to examine the potential impact on the health of Australians. HIA is an established way of predicting the positive and negative health impacts of a policy or proposal to then make recommendations to improve that proposal.

The HIA focused on four areas of potential health impact:

  • ƒƒthe cost of medicines; ƒƒ
  • tobacco control policies; ƒƒ
  • alcohol control policies; and ƒƒ
  • food labelling.

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