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  • Health Inc: Corporations, capitalism, and commercial determinants of health

Health Inc: Corporations, capitalism, and commercial determinants of health

  • 22 Nov 2021
  • 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
  • Webinar

Seminar 1: Corporate Influences on Health and Healthcare

About this event

***Zoom link will be shared two hours prior to the meeting to everyone who registers***

This panel is co-hosted by the Centre for Global Health, Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto.

Participants that attend all of the events in this series will receive a certificate of completion.

About This Series

The corporation is arguably the most powerful social and economic institution globally, with unprecedented power to shape scientific evidence, public policy, and lifestyles. Corporations share practices including advertising, public relations, and lobbying that are common across industries and which impact population health and health equity. For example, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are currently the leading cause of mortality globally and account for 71% of all deaths according to the World Health Organization (WHO).1 The main risk factors for developing NCDs as identified by the WHO include harmful alcohol drinking, tobacco use, physical inactivity, and the consumption of unhealthy diets rich in overly processed foods.2 The United Nations has addressed NCDs in their Sustainable Development Goal target 3.4, which is to reduce premature mortality from NCDs by a third by 2030.3 At the same time, medically-related industry, including pharmaceutical, medical device, infant formula, and health technology companies have pervasive influence over the production of health evidence, the dissemination of health innovations, and the development of clinical practice and health policy. Critical public health analysis of the power of the corporate sector in influencing public health outcomes informed the field referred to as the commercial determinants of health. The Lancet Global Health defines the commercial determinants of health as “strategies and approaches used by the private sector to promote products and choices that are detrimental to health”.4 Corporate practices can thus be critically examined and strategically challenged in order to contribute to healthy, evidence-based public policy solutions. The Dalla Lana School of Public Health’s Centre for Global Health in partnership with the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto are hosting a seminar series entitled Health Inc: Corporations, capitalism, and the commercial determinants of health. The objective of this seminar series is to create a forum to promote conversations, research training and collaboration across sectors and disciplines regarding the impact of corporations on health. Themes that will be explored during the seminar series include but are not limited to industry’s role in harm reduction, public-private partnerships, conflicts of interests, industry sponsorship and conduct of research, health data and data justice, sustainable health care, and the role of corporations in the climate crisis and inequities.

1. World Health Organization. Non communicable diseases. World Health Organization; 2021.

2. World Health Organization. Noncommunicable diseases country profiles 2018. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2018.

3. NCD Countdown 2030 collaborators. (2020). NCD Countdown 2030: pathways to achieving Sustainable Development Goal target 3.4. Lancet Public Health. 396(10255): 918-934 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31761-X

4. Kickbusch, I., Allen, L., Franz, C. (2016). The commercial determinates of health. Lancet. 4(12): 895-896, https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(16)30217-0


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