Commercial Determinants of Health

Season 9 is off to an exceptionally strong start with our recent discussion with Dr. Nicholas Freudenberg, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Public Health at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Public Health. Dr. Freudenberg is Senior Faculty Fellow and co-founder of the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute (www.cunyurbanfoodpolicy.org). He is a leading expert in Commercial Determinants of Health, authoring two key books in the field; At What Cost: Modern Capitalism and the Future of Health (Oxford, 2021) and Lethal but Legal: Corporations, Consumption, and Protecting Public Health (Oxford, 2014 and 2016). He was a contributor to the landmark Lancet series on the topic: https://www.thelancet.com/series-do/commercial-determinants-health.

Commercial Determinants of Health can be understood as the ways that market actors influence health and disease globally. Commercial Determinants of Health are related to Social Determinants of Health and Political Determinants of Health, which together form a system that influences patterns of human health and disease. The term developed in the early 2000s, emerging from an earlier concept of Corporate Determinants of Health, recognizing that a small number of multinational global corporations dominate the world economy. Dr. Freudenberg explains that changing behavior of businesses and corporations can achieve public health gains at a much greater scale that traditional individual behavioral change approaches, citing successful policies regulating the tobacco industry and smaller gains changing the business opportunities to favor alternatives to the fossil fuel industry. One of the largest commercial determinants of health is the food industry, where there are multiple opportunities for change. Dr. Freudenberg discusses the importance of coordination between activists and public health professionals to counterbalance the influence of corporations on policy. What is the role of bioethicists? Listen and find out!

Bibliography:

https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-052220-020447

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)00011-9/abstract

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/at-what-cost-9780190078621?cc=us&lang=en&

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/lethal-but-legal-9780199937196?cc=us&lang=en&