Regulation for health inequalities and non-communicable diseases: In want of (effective) behavioural insights

The death and disease burden of non-communicable diseases falls disproportionately on members of lower socioeconomic groups. This paper explores NCD prevention measures introduced through EU consumer law in order to assess the impact these have had on health inequalities. It demonstrates that these interventions often have limited impact, and therefore maintain inequalities. Indeed, when interventions do work, they tend to be more effective with advantaged citizens than disadvantaged citizens, and therefore increase inequalities. From a behavioural research perspective, this paper demonstrates why these interventions - which focus on regulating the consumer information environment - have failed to reduce health inequalities, and analyses the debate on the extent to which behavioural research should act as a core consideration in public health related consumer policy. The paper concludes that, while regulating consumer information is a useful tool for NCD prevention, if information-based interventions are to reduce health inequalities the EU will need to incorporate greater insights from the way consumers actually behave. Moreover, there are limitations to policies which regulate information, and therefore the EU should make more use of other tools in its regulatory toolbox.