The  Commercial Determinants of Health

Critical reflection questions

• What are the key pathways through which commercial factors influence health?

• How can commercial determinants impact the production and sharing of knowledge through research? (e.g. Bero et al, 2007; Lundh et al, 2017; Lesser et al, 2007; Barnes et al, 1998; Legg et al, 2021)

• How do commercial determinants of health vary across different socioeconomic groups and communities?

• What are the ethical implications of commercial marketing of unhealthy products, such as fast food, tobacco, and alcohol?

• How can governments and public health organizations effectively regulate commercial activities that negatively impact health?

• What role can individuals and communities play in mitigating the harmful effects of commercial determinants of health?

• How can we ensure that commercial interests align with the promotion of public health?

• What might potential frameworks for corporate social responsibility and ethical marketing practices look like?

• What are the global dimensions of commercial determinants of health? How do transnational corporations and global trade agreements influence health policies and outcomes in different countries?

• How does the digital age amplify the impact of commercial determinants of health?

• What are the emerging trends in commercial determinants of health that we need to be aware of? What are the potential impact of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, on health marketing and product development.

• How can we effectively communicate the complex issues surrounding commercial determinants of health to diverse audiences? What are the strategies for engaging the public, policymakers, and industry stakeholders in meaningful discussions and action.

Further Reading

Allen, L. N., Hatefi, A., & Feigl, A. B. (2019). Corporate profits versus spending on non-communicable disease prevention: an unhealthy balance. The Lancet Global Health, 7(11), e1482-e1483. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(19)30399-7 

Allen, L.N., Wigley, S., Holmer, H. (2022) Assessing the association between Corporate Financial Influence and implementation of policies to tackle commercial determinants of non-communicable diseases: A cross-sectional analysis of 172 countries. Social Science & Medicine. 297, March 2022, 114825 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114825 

Barnes, D. E., & Bero, L. A. (1998). Why review articles on the health effects of passive smoking reach different conclusions. Jama, 279(19), 1566-1570. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.279.19.1566 

Bero, L., Oostvogel, F., Bacchetti, P., & Lee, K. (2007). Factors associated with findings of published trials of drug–drug comparisons: why some statins appear more efficacious than others. PLoS medicine, 4(6), e184. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040184 

Briggs, J., & Vallone, D. (2022). The Tobacco Industry’s Renewed Assault on Science: A Call for a United Public Health Response. American Journal of Public Health, 112(3), 388-390. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306683 

Brownell KD, Warner KE (2009) The perils of ignoring history: Big tobacco played dirty and millions died. how similar is big food. Milbank Q 87:259–294. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0009.2009.00555.x

Buse, K., Tanaka, S., & Hawkes, S. (2017). Healthy people and healthy profits? Elaborating a conceptual framework for governing the commercial determinants of non-communicable diseases and identifying options for reducing risk exposure. Globalization and health, 13(1), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-017-0255-3 

Collin J, Ralston R, Hill SE, Westerman L (2020) Signalling Virtue, Promoting Harm: Unhealthy commodity industries and COVID-19. NCD Alliance, SPECTRUM https://ncdalliance.org/resources/signalling-virtue-promoting-harm

David, J. L., Thomas, S. L., Randle, M., Daube, M., & Balandin, S. (2019). The role of public health advocacy in preventing and reducing gambling related harm: challenges, facilitators, and opportunities for change. Addiction research & theory, 27(3), 210-219.  https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2018.1490410 

Dorfman L, Cheyne A, Friedman LC, et al (2012) Soda and tobacco industry corporate social responsibility campaigns: How do they compare? PLoS Med 9:9. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001241

Fallin, A., Grana, R., & Glantz, S. A. (2014). ‘To quarterback behind the scenes, third-party efforts’: the tobacco industry and the Tea Party. Tobacco Control, 23(4), 322-331. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815 

Gómez, E. J. (2022). Enhancing our understanding of the commercial determinants of health: Theories, methods, and insights from political science. Social Science & Medicine, 114931. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114931 

Gostin, L. O., Monahan, J. T., Kaldor, J., DeBartolo, M., Friedman, E. A., Gottschalk, K., ... & Cabal, L. (2019). The legal determinants of health: harnessing the power of law for global health and sustainable development. The Lancet, 393(10183), 1857-1910. 

Greenhalgh, S. (2019). Making China safe for Coke: how Coca-Cola shaped obesity science and policy in China. BMJ, 364. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k5050 

Hernandez-Aguado I, Zaragoza GA (2016) Support of public–private partnerships in health promotion and conflicts of interest. BMJ Open 6:e009342. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2015-009342

Jahiel, R. I., & Babor, T. F. (2007). Industrial epidemics, public health advocacy and the alcohol industry: Lessons from other fields [Editorial]. Addiction, 102(9), 1335–1339. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2007.01900.x 

Jane, B., & Gibson, K. (2017). Corporate sponsorship of physical activity promotion programmes: part of the solution or part of the problem?. Journal of Public Health, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdx065 

Kickbusch, I. (2012) Addressing The Interface of the Political and Commercial Determinants of Health. Health Promotion International, 27 (4), 427-428. 

Kickbusch, I., Allen, L., & Franz, C. (2016). The commercial determinants of health. The Lancet Global Health, 4(12), e895-e896. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(16)30217-0 

Knai, C., Petticrew, M., Mays, N., Capewell, S., Cassidy, R., Cummins, S., ... & Katikireddi, S. V. (2018). Systems thinking as a framework for analyzing commercial determinants of health. The Milbank Quarterly, 96(3), 472-498. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.12339 

Kriznik, N. M., Kinmonth, A. L., Ling, T., & Kelly, M. P. (2018). Moving beyond individual choice in policies to reduce health inequalities: the integration of dynamic with individual explanations. Journal of Public Health, 40(4), 764-775. https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdy045 

Lacy-Nichols, J., Marten, R., Crosbie, E. and Moodie, R. (2022) The public health playbook: ideas for challenging the corporate playbook. The Lancet Global Health https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(22)00185-1 

de Lacy-Vawdon, C., & Livingstone, C. (2020). Defining the commercial determinants of health: a systematic review. BMC public health, 20(1), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09126-1 

Lee, K., Freudenberg, N., Zenone, M., Smith, J., Mialon, M., Marten, R., ... & Buse, K. (2022). Measuring the Commercial Determinants of Health and Disease: A Proposed Framework. International Journal of Health Services, 52(1), 115-128. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F00207314211044992 

Legg, T., Hatchard, J., & Gilmore, A. B. (2021). The science for profit model—how and why corporations influence science and the use of science in policy and practice. PloS one, 16(6), e0253272. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253272 

Lesser, L. I., Ebbeling, C. B., Goozner, M., Wypij, D., & Ludwig, D. S. (2007). Relationship between funding source and conclusion among nutrition-related scientific articles. PLoS medicine, 4(1), e5. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040005 

Lundh, A., Lexchin, J., Mintzes, B., Schroll, J. B., & Bero, L. (2017). Industry sponsorship and research outcome. Cochrane database of systematic reviews, 2 (MR000033):1–140. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.MR000033.pub3 

Maani, N., van Schalkwyk, M. C. I., Filippidis, F. T., Knai, C., & Petticrew, M. (2022). Manufacturing doubt: Assessing the effects of independent vs industry-sponsored messaging about the harms of fossil fuels, smoking, alcohol, and sugar sweetened beverages. SSM-population health, 17, 101009. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.101009 

Maani, N., McKee, M., Petticrew, M., Galea, S. (2020) Corporate practices and the health of populations: a research and translational agenda. The Lancet Public Health DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(19)30270-1 

Maani, N., Collin, J., Friel, S., Gilmore, A.B., McCambridge, J., Robertson, L., Petticrew, M.P. (2020) Bringing the commercial determinants of health out of the shadows: a review of how the commercial determinants are represented in conceptual frameworks, European Journal of Public Health, ckz197, https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckz197 

Maani, N, Bertscher A, Critchlow N, Fitzgerald N, Knai C, Stead M, Petticrew M. Recruiting the “Heavy-Using Loyalists of Tomorrow”: An Analysis of the Aims, Effects and Mechanisms of Alcohol Advertising, Based on Advertising Industry Evaluations. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2019; 16(21):4092.  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16214092 

Maani, N., van Schalkwyk, M. C., Petticrew, M., & Buse, K. (2022). The pollution of health discourse and the need for effective counter-framing. bmj, 377. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o1128 

Maani, N., & McKee, M. (2022). The commercial determinants of health: The mini-budget is a consequence of foundational forces medicine must bear witness to. BMJ, 378. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o2327  

Marks, J. H. (2019). The perils of partnership: Industry influence, institutional integrity, and public health. Oxford University Press. [publisher]

McKee, M., & Stuckler, D. (2018). Revisiting the corporate and commercial determinants of health. American Journal of Public Health, 108(9), 1167-1170. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304510

Mialon, M., Vandevijvere, S., Carriedo-Lutzenkirchen, A., Bero, L., Gomes, F., Petticrew, M., ... & Sacks, G. (2020). Mechanisms for addressing and managing the influence of corporations on public health policy, research and practice: a scoping review. BMJ open, 10(7), e034082. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-034082  

Mialon, M. (2020). An overview of the commercial determinants of health. Globalization and Health, 16(1), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00607-x 

Michaels, D., & Monforton, C. (2005). Manufacturing uncertainty: contested science and the protection of the public’s health and environment. American Journal of Public Health, 95(S1), S39-S48.

Newall, P. W. S., Walasek, L., Singmann, H., & Ludvig, E. A. (2019, August 3). Testing a gambling warning label’s effect on behavior. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dxfkj   

Petticrew, M., Katikireddi, S. V., Knai, C., Cassidy, R., Hessari, N. M., Thomas, J., & Weishaar, H. (2017). ‘Nothing can be done until everything is done’: the use of complexity arguments by food, beverage, alcohol and gambling industries. J Epidemiol Community Health, 71(11), 1078-1083.

Petticrew, M., Maani, N., Pettigrew, L., Rutter, H. and Van Schalkwyk, M.C. (2020), Dark Nudges and Sludge in Big Alcohol: Behavioral Economics, Cognitive Biases, and Alcohol Industry Corporate Social Responsibility. The Milbank Quarterly. doi:10.1111/1468-0009.12475 

Petticrew, M. P., Lee, K., & McKee, M. (2012). Type A behavior pattern and coronary heart disease: Philip Morris’s “crown jewel”. American journal of public health, 102(11), 2018-2025. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2012.300816 

Ralston R, Godziewski C, Brooks E (2023) Reconceptualising the commercial determinants of health: bringing institutions in. BMJ Global Health 8:e013698 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2023-013698 

Serodio, P., Ruskin, G, McKee, M., Stuckler, D. (2020) Evaluating Coca-Cola’s attempts to influence public health ‘in their own words’: analysis of Coca-Cola emails with public health academics leading the Global Energy Balance Network Public Health Nutrition DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980020002098

Sutherland, I. (1987). Health education-half a policy: the rise and fall of the Health Education Council. National Extension Trust Limited. 

van Schalkwyk, M. C., Petticrew, M., Maani, N., Hawkins, B., Bonell, C., Katikireddi, S. V., & Knai, C. (2022). Distilling the curriculum: An analysis of alcohol industry-funded school-based youth education programmes. Plos one, 17(1), e0259560. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259560 

Wiist, W. H. (2019). Mechanisms Underlying Corporations as Determinants of Health. American journal of public health, 109(2), e1-e1. 

William H. Wiist (Ed.). (2010). The bottom line or public health: tactics corporations use to influence health and health policy, and what we can do to counter them. Oxford University Press.  [google books]

Berkely Media Studies Group - Media Advocacy Resources and find them on twitter @BMSG

Corporate Consumption Complex And The Need For A New Public Health Agenda

Further Links on this website

Coke and Physical Activity Schemes

Determinants of Health

Weight Stigma 

Further Links elsewhere

A twitter conversation about Cadbury's sponsoring a National Trust egg-hunt

Deep concerns over public health as The BMJ reveals MPs’ links to organisation backed by tobacco industry https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/deep-concerns-over-public-health-as-the-bmj-reveals-mps-links-to-organisation-backed-by-tobacco-industry/ 

Marion Nestle's blog articles on "Conflict of Interest" https://www.foodpolitics.com/tag/conflicts-of-interest/ 

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