A content analysis of 2023 Türkiye general election pledges on public health nutrition and related sustainable development goals

Giving priority to public health nutrition policies can improve health quality and national development. An intersecting analysis of public health nutrition (PHN) and political pledges is limited globally, and in the context of Türkiye. This study aimed to analyze the emphasis given by political parties and alliances to policies related to public health nutrition (PHN) in their publicly available documents and to identify whether their proposals reflect a broad understanding of nutrition-related public health issues. This study employed a qualitative research design utilizing the content analysis method. Publicly available pledges including election declarations, party programs, and formal website-based documents were analyzed in the study. The website-based documents were analyzed through qualitative content analysis via MAXQDA (Version 2022.8) software. This study consisted of two distinct analyses. The first analysis was conducted through themes of nutrition security, food supply, food safety, sustainable agriculture, and cultural sensitivity. In the second analysis, documents were analyzed in relation to specific four Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) namely Goal 2 (Zero Hunger), Goal 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), Goal 5 (Gender Equality), and Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), all of which are relevant to PHN. Overall, the documents were coded 1209 times in the first analysis on PHN, while were coded 941 times in the second analysis on SDGs. The main opposition Nation Alliance (NA) had the most coded documents followed by the ruling People’s Alliance (PA). After sustainable agriculture, the majority of policies were produced in the theme of food security, followed by food safety, food supply, and cultural sensitivity respectively. For SDGs, Goal 2 (Zero Hunger) was the most coded theme followed by Goal 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), Goal 5 (Gender Equality), and Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) respectively. The category of sustainable nutrition has not been used in the documents of any party or alliance. Moreover, the dietitian profession legislation has been proposed by only two alliances. Parties/alliances remained inadequate in offering pledges in relation to PHN and related SDG goals. The findings provide evidence-based resources to emphasize this area, raising awareness among researchers, policy advocates, and policymakers, and ultimately contributing to the development of sustainable, accountable, and country-specific policies.