Addressing power and politics through action on the commercial determinants of health

Defining the commercial determinants of health: a systematic review

“…Most commonly, CDoH were described as resulting from expressions of economic and political power wielded by large corporate entities, described as "powerful economic operators" [16,19,30,35]. Power imbalances were described both between corporations (large, for-profit, often trans-national entities) and governments with conflicting interests [30,33,34,39,43], and between corporations and individual citizens, driving behaviors that harm health [6,33,39].…”

“…Overall, it was emphasized that powerful private sector interests commonly prevail over public health governance and accountability measures [5,16,38,39]. The source of this power was reportedly changing patterns of global business and consumption, led by rising demand, increasing market coverage, and internationalization of trade and investment [18,19].…”

“…Hastings [5] suggested public health professionals need to drive a swing away from corporate capitalism towards economic systems that better promote public health. Others emphasized the role of neoliberal systems overall, and the importance of addressing these in the interests of improved health [9,39]. CDoH were described as products of contemporary macroeconomics, facilitated by globalization and transnationalization of corporations.…”

“…Self-regulation by industry was perceived as being the prominent model of regulation [16,31,33]. Corporations reportedly stave off public regulation via self-regulation [25,33] and other methods [16,25,27,30,31,33,34,37,39,43].…”

Health promotion: A political imperative

“…The need for action on the social, commercial and structural determinants of health has been a prominent feature of the AHPA/PHAA health promotion and illness prevention policy statement, consistent with recent national scholarship in this field . Four key actions outlined in the policy statement include a call for the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Health Council to establish a health promotion and illness prevention leadership structure/mechanism to establish strategic directions, prioritise actions and allocate resources; the development of a Health Promotion and Illness Prevention Strategic Framework; a commitment of 5% of national health expenditure directed towards health promotion; and at least 10% of the Medical Research Future Fund directed towards national health promotion and illness prevention efforts [34, p5‐6].…”