Framing Commercial Determinants of Health: An Assessment of Potential for Guiding More Effective Responses to the Public Health Crises of the 21st Century

Tags:
Centennial Issue
Topics:
Commercial Determinants of Health

Policy Points:

  • The commercial determinants of health (CDH) framework can inform public health policy, practice, and research in ways that contribute to overcoming the world’s most serious public health challenges.
  • By documenting the pathways by which commercial actors shape health, the CDH framework can provide a unifying focus for collective action to prevent and ameliorate global health crises.
  • To realize these opportunities, CDH proponents need to find synergies in the multiple emerging streams of research, practice, and advocacy and create a body of scientific evidence, methodologies, and ideas that can inform a public health practice for the 21st century.

Since emerging as a concept in the first years of the 21st century,1–3 the term commercial determinants of health has gained growing attention from researchers, public health professionals, and activists. Defined simply in 2013 as “factors that influence health which stem from the profit motive,”4 the commercial determinants of health (CDH)1 framework has the potential to inform public health policy, practice, and research that can more effectively overcome the most serious public health challenges of the current era. In this Perspective, I describe the strengths and accomplishments of this framework, analyze its limitations, and suggest directions for CDH research, practice, policy, education, and leadership.

References

  1. Hastings G. Why corporate power is a public health priority. BMJ.2012;345:e5124.
  2. Freudenberg N, Galea S. The impact of corporate practices on health: implications for health policy. J Pub Health Pol. 2008;29(1):86-104.
  3. Jahiel RI. Corporation-induced diseases, upstream epidemiologic surveillance, and urban health. J Urban Health. 2008;85(4):517-531.
  4. West R, Marteau T. Commentary on Casswell (2013): the commercial determinants of health. Addiction (Abingdon, England). 2013;108(4):686-687.

Citation:
Freudenberg N. Framing Commercial Determinants of Health: An Assessment of Potential for Guiding More Effective Responses to the Public Health Crises of the 21st Century. Milbank Q. 2023;101(S1): 83-98.