Reclaiming the narrative: countering harmful commercial discourses.

The discourses promoted by powerful commercial actors whose business activities are damaging to health undermine the potential for the transformational changes urgently needed to address pressing public health and environmental threats globally. This piece provides an analysis of corporate discursive practices and the mechanisms through which they contaminate scientific and policy debates and harm public and environmental health. We refer to this phenomenon as 'discursive pollution' to reflect the parallels between the effects of informational strategies and the commercial activities of harmful industries.

Overcoming doubt: developing CDoH Essentials, a practical tool to introduce the commercial determinants of health.

Despite growing awareness of the importance of commercial determinants of health (CDoH), there has been limited development or evaluation of educational and practice-focused support for public health professionals. This article reports findings from an action-research approach bringing together people with academic and practice expertise (n = 16) to co-create workshop materials (called 'CDoH Essentials'), test and improve them through five trial workshops and explore their effects. Five English local public health teams co-facilitated the workshops in their organizations, with participants from public health teams and their internal partners (n = 94).

Addressing the commercial determinants of mental health: an umbrella review of population-level interventions.

There is increasing evidence that commercial determinants impact mental health. Addressing the commercial determinants may therefore be a way of improving population-level mental health. This umbrella review aimed to provide an overview of evidence in this field and identify knowledge gaps.

Tobacco industry narratives of e-cigarette use in the UK: a qualitative framing analysis.

Public health actors have expressed concerns over the entry of the tobacco industry into the UK e-cigarette market. It is important to be aware of the tobacco industry's involvement and stated aims for e-cigarettes in the UK, given their historical attempts to divert attention from and escape responsibility for the harms caused by combustible cigarettes. The use of e-cigarettes amongst young people in the UK has remained constant, despite the law prohibiting sales to adolescents and claims by manufacturers and others that they are designed solely as a tool to quit smoking.

Commercial determinants of mental ill health: An umbrella review.

Mental ill health has complex and interrelated underlying causes, with wider determinants of health often overlooked as risk factors. The 'commercial determinants of health' are gradually receiving more attention and recognition but there is a relative lack of awareness of the commercial determinants of mental health. This aim of this umbrella review was to synthesise systematic review level evidence for the association between commercial determinants and mental health outcomes.

Alternative cancer clinics' use of Google listings and reviews to mislead potential patients.

Background: Alternative cancer clinics, who provide treatment associated with earlier time to death, actively seek to create favorable views of their services online. An unexplored means where alternative cancer clinics can shape their appeal is their Google search results.

Methods: We retrieved the Google listing and Google reviews of 47 prominent alternative cancer clinics on August 22, 2022.

The Perils of Partnership: Interactions Between Public Health England, Drinkaware, and the Portman Group Surrounding the Drink Free Days Campaign.

Background: There is growing evidence that the alcohol industry seeks to obstruct public health policies that might affect future alcohol sales. In parallel, the alcohol industry funds organisations that engage in "responsible drinking" campaigns. Evidence is growing that the content and delivery of such campaigns serves industry, rather than public health interests, yet these organizations continue to be the subject of partnerships with government health departments.

The role of metaphor in the corporate political strategies of health harming industries: Comparing the concept of balance in the gambling and opioid industry discourses.

Scholars have identified notable similarities between the political strategies employed by health-harming industries. This includes similarities in the narratives employed by industry actors seeking to oppose public health regulations that threaten their commercial interests. This study seeks to examine the use of a specific concept - the balance metaphor - in the policy discourses of two health-harming industries.

Meeting the challenges of the 21st century: the fundamental importance of trust for transformation.

Background: This paper is one of a collection on challenges facing health systems in the future. One obvious challenge is how to transform to meet changing health needs and take advantage of emerging treatment opportunities. However, we argue that effective transformations are only possible if there is trust in the health system.

The WHO Foundation in global health governance: Depoliticizing corporate philanthropy.

The creation of the WHO Foundation during the COVID-19 pandemic represents a significant institutional development in the politics of financing the World Health Organization (WHO). In the context of longstanding acute financial pressures, the objective of the WHO Foundation is to widen WHO's resource base by attracting philanthropic donations from the commercial sector. In placing funding decisions 'at one remove' from WHO, the stated expectation is that the WHO Foundation will act as an intermediary, insulating the WHO from potential conflicts of interest and reputational risk through a combination of strategic distance from WHO and proximity with its norms and rules of engagement with non-state actors.

Agnogenic practices and corporate political strategy: the legitimation of UK gambling industry-funded youth education programmes.

Agnogenic practices-designed to create ignorance or doubt-are well-established strategies employed by health-harming industries (HHI). However, little is known about their use by industry-funded organizations delivering youth education programmes. We applied a previously published framework of corporate agnogenic practices to analyse how these organizations used them in three UK gambling industry-funded youth education programmes.

The Commercial Determinants of Health and Evidence Synthesis (CODES): methodological guidance for systematic reviews and other evidence syntheses.

Background: The field of the commercial determinants of health (CDOH) refers to the commercial products, pathways and practices that may affect health. The field is growing rapidly, as evidenced by the WHO programme on the economic and commercial determinants of health and a rise in researcher and funder interest. Systematic reviews (SRs) and evidence synthesis more generally will be crucial tools in the evolution of CDOH as a field.

Brexit, trade and the governance of non-communicable diseases: a research agenda.

Background: The UK's post-Brexit trade strategy has potentially important implications for population health and equity. In particular, it will impact on the structural risk factors for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including the consumption of health-harming commodities such as tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed food and beverages. This article catalogues recent developments in UK trade policy.

Advertising Alternative Cancer Treatments and Approaches on Meta Social Media Platforms: Content Analysis.

Background: Alternative cancer treatment is associated with a greater risk of death than cancer patients undergoing conventional treatments. Anecdotal evidence suggests cancer patients view paid advertisements promoting alternative cancer treatment on social media, but the extent and nature of this advertising remain unknown. This context suggests an urgent need to investigate alternative cancer treatment advertising on social media.