8.H. Workshop: The commercial determinants of health strategies and tactics: cases from 3 health harming industries

The social determinants of health framework and the socioecological model have established the strong influence of the physical and wider social contexts on health and health inequities globally, although the circumstances where people live, work and grow up have been documented for a long time. These determinants can have health promoting and health damaging effects on population, environmental and planetary health. Recent scholarship on the commercial determinants of health focusing specifically on commercial actors, has exponentially proliferated and draws attention to for-profit industries, actors and strategies that promote products and choices which are detrimental to health. The recent Lancet series provides frameworks to better understand and regulate CDH, and has been endorsed by the WHO. This workshop aims to present the unethical health harming strategies and tactics of the for-profit sector with cases from three industries: the tobacco/vaping, the alcohol, and fossil fuel industries. The workshop begins with an overview of the commercial determinants, their multiple influences on people's well-being and their surroundings globally, and the strategies of action they use to market their products, influencing and threatening public health. The first case discusses how the vape industry advertises its Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems to youth, particularly targeting the young LGBTQ+ population. The second presentation describes the alcohol industry strategies, such as introducing beverages which have confusing definitions to indirectly advertise for alcohol brands where alcohol advertising is restricted, as well as undermining science and purging alliances with policy makers. The last presenter discusses further unethical efforts of the fossil fuel industry to hide evidence of the harms from benzene over more than half a century, promote false data and influence legislation. Implications for global policy and practice are offered. KEY MESSAGES: • Commercial determinants of health endanger one health and this require concerted global efforts. • Commercial actors influence public health though unethical strategies to promote their businesses.