Defining Priorities for Action and Research on the Commercial Determinants of Health: A Conceptual Review

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Abstract

In recent years, the concept of commercial determinants of health (CDoH) has attracted scholarly, public policy, and activist interest. To date, however, this new attention has failed to yield a clear and consistent definition, well-defined metrics for quantifying its impact, or coherent directions for research and intervention.

By tracing the origins of this concept over 2 centuries of interactions between market forces and public health action and research, we propose an expanded framework and definition of CDoH. This conceptualization enables public health professionals and researchers to more fully realize the potential of the CDoH concept to yield insights that can be used to improve global and national health and reduce the stark health inequities within and between nations. It also widens the utility of CDoH from its main current use to study noncommunicable diseases to other health conditions such as infectious diseases, mental health conditions, injuries, and exposure to environmental threats.

We suggest specific actions that public health professionals can take to transform the burgeoning interest in CDoH into meaningful improvements in health. (Am J Public Health. 2021;111(12):2202–2211. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306491 )

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Most cited references 46

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A Brief History of Neoliberalism

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Neoliberalism--the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action--has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970 or so. Writing for a wide audience, David Harvey, author of The New Imperialism and The Condition of Postmodernity, here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage. Through critical engagement with this history, he constructs a framework, not only for analyzing the political and economic dangers that now surround us, but also for assessing the prospects for the more socially just alternatives being advocated by many oppositional movements.

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The 2011 UN high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) called for multisectoral action including with the private sector and industry. However, through the sale and promotion of tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed food and drink (unhealthy commodities), transnational corporations are major drivers of global epidemics of NCDs. What role then should these industries have in NCD prevention and control? We emphasise the rise in sales of these unhealthy commodities in low-income and middle-income countries, and consider the common strategies that the transnational corporations use to undermine NCD prevention and control. We assess the effectiveness of self-regulation, public-private partnerships, and public regulation models of interaction with these industries and conclude that unhealthy commodity industries should have no role in the formation of national or international NCD policy. Despite the common reliance on industry self-regulation and public-private partnerships, there is no evidence of their effectiveness or safety. Public regulation and market intervention are the only evidence-based mechanisms to prevent harm caused by the unhealthy commodity industries. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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In an article that forms part of the PLoS Medicine series on Big Food, David Stuckler and colleagues report that unhealthy packaged foods are being consumed rapidly in low- and middle-income countries, consistent with rapid expansion of multinational food companies into emerging markets and fueling obesity and chronic disease epidemics.

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Author and article information

Journal

Title: American Journal of Public Health

Abbreviated Title: Am J Public Health

Publisher: American Public Health Association

ISSN (Print): 0090-0036

ISSN (Electronic): 1541-0048

Publication date Created: December 2021

Publication date (Print): December 2021

Volume: 111

Issue: 12

Pages: 2202-2211

Affiliations

[1 ]Nicholas Freudenberg is with the Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, City University of New York, New York, NY. Kelley Lee is with the Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Kent Buse is with The George Institute for Global Health, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, UK. Jeff Collin is with the Global Health Policy Unit, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Eric Crosbie is with the School of...

Article

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2021.306491

PubMed ID: 34878875

SO-VID: f2bea8f0-9650-42ab-8be2-761fa56c5bdb

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