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Globally, excess salt intake is a significant cause of preventable heart disease and stroke, given the established links between high salt intake, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease. This paper describes and evaluates the voluntary approaches to salt reduction that operate in the United Kingdom and the United States, and proposes a new strategy for improving their performance. Drawing on developments in the theory and practice of public health governance, as well as theoretical ideas from the field of regulatory studies, this paper proposes a responsive regulatory model for managing food reformulation initiatives, including salt reduction programs. This model provides a transparent framework for guiding industry behavior, making full use of industry's willingness to participate in efforts to create healthier products, but using 'legislative scaffolding' to escalate from self-regulation towards co-regulation if industry fails to play its part in achieving national goals and targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, excess salt intake is a significant cause of preventable heart disease and stroke, given the established links between high salt intake, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease. This paper describes and evaluates the voluntary approaches to salt reduction that operate in the United Kingdom and the United States, and proposes a new strategy for improving their performance. Drawing on developments in the theory and practice of public health governance, as well as theoretical ideas theoretical ideas from the field of regulatory studies, this paper proposes a responsive regulatory model for managing food reformulation initiatives, including salt reduction programs. This model provides a transparent framework for guiding industry behavior, making full use of industry's willingness to participate in efforts to create healthier products, but using 'legislative scaffolding' to escalate from self-regulation towards co-regulation if industry fails to play its part in achieving national goals and targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines some of the challenges facing public health education and training in the UK, especially those relating to the wider workforce. It identifies key drivers for the need to improve access to and provision of public health education and training, such as the establishment of the Voluntary Register for Public Health Specialists and the launch of the Public Health Skills and Career Framework. The paper also touches briefly on developments in public health education and training in the USA, noting where lessons could be learnt by both countries. The paper notes how the traditional approach of structured training, white stilt valuable for those wishing to work at the specialist level, needs to be combined with an approach that enables other workers to achieve competence in public health. This challenge is being met, in part, through provision of online resources and teaching, and the development of Teaching Public Health Networks. The challenges facing the UK are similar to those facing the public health sector in the USA. As such, the two countries can learn from one another in order to address this important workforce development issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]