Commercial determinants of health

Abstract

The commercial determinants of health is a field of research examining how the activities of large-scale for-profit organizations impact population health and health equity. Building on theories of the social determinants of health, it examines how transnational corporations influence social structures, processes and dynamics to shape the conditions in which we live and which in turn influence our health. Scholarship on the commercial determinants of health pays particular attention to the power of corporations and how this interacts with other actors and dynamics. Tobacco was the first industry via which health researchers came to view commercial determinants as an important focus of research. Scholarship subsequently investigated the activities of other ‘unhealthy commodity’ industries - such as producers of alcohol and ultra-processed food/beverage products - and of transnational businesses including extractive companies, arms producers and the pharmaceutical industry. Research on the commercial determinants of health draws on a broad range of data sources and employs concepts and approaches from diverse social science disciplines.

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