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Gift from tobacco industry lobbyists to a European politician in 2013.

Air pollution causes 7 million premature deaths every year.^[1]

The commercial determinants of health are the private sector activities that influence individual and group differences in health status.^[2] Commercial determinants of health can affect people's health positively (such as sport or medical industries) or negatively (such as arms and tobacco industries).^[2]^[3] They are part of the broader social determinants of health.

Types

Corporate and business activities influences the social, physical and cultural environments in which people live. For example:^[2]^[4]

Preference shaping through marketing, including product design (such as food formulation making it more or less healthy), packaging and advertising (enhancing the desirability and acceptability);
Political lobbying (impeding policy barriers such as plain tobacco packaging);
Supply chains (amplifying company influence around the globe);
Corporate social responsibility strategies (whitewashing tarnished reputations);
Labour conditions;
Financial practices;
Funding of science.

Impact

Commercial determinants of health impact a wide range of risk factors and noncommunicable diseases (especially cardiovascular diseases,^[5] cancer,^[6] chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes). For example:^[2]^[7]

Smoking^[8] (tobacco industry);
Air pollution^[1] (fossil-fuel industry);
Alcohol use^[9] (alcohol industry);
Obesity^[10] and physical inactivity^[11] (food industry);
Injuries on roads^[12] and from weapons (arms industry).

According to The Lancet, 'four industries (tobacco, unhealthy food, fossil fuel, and alcohol) are responsible for at least a third of global deaths per year'.^[7] In 2024, the World Health Organization published a report including these figures.^[13]^[14]

Notes and references

^ ^a ^b "Ambient (outdoor) air pollution". who.int. World Health Organization. 19 December 2022. Retrieved 11 November 2023. Air pollution is one of the greatest environmental risk to health. [...] The combined effects of ambient air pollution and household air pollution are associated with 6.7 million premature deaths annually.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Commercial determinants of health". who.int. World Health Organization. 21 March 2023. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
^ Banatvala, Nick; Bovet, Pascal, eds. (2023). "The role of the private sector in NCD prevention and control". Noncommunicable Diseases: A Compendium. London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003306689. ISBN 978-1-032-30792-3. Open access.
^ Ilona Kickbusch; Luke Allen; Christian Franz (December 2016). "The commercial determinants of health". The Lancet Global Health. 4 (12): e895–e896. doi:10.1016/S2214-109X(16)30217-0. PMID 27855860.
^ Fact sheet "Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs)". who.int. World Health Organization. 11 June 2021. Retrieved 11 November 2023. Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death globally. An estimated 17.9 million people died from CVDs in 2019, representing 32% of all global deaths.
^ Fact sheet "Cancer". who.int. World Health Organization. 3 February 2022. Retrieved 11 November 2023. Around one-third of deaths from cancer are due to tobacco use, high body mass index, alcohol consumption, low fruit and vegetable intake, and lack of physical activity.
^ ^a ^b The Lancet (23 March 2023). "Unravelling the commercial determinants of health". The Lancet (Editorial). 401 (10383): 1131. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00590-1. PMID 36966781.
^ Fact sheet "Tobacco". who.int. World Health Organization. 31 July 2023. Retrieved 11 November 2023. Tobacco kills more than 8 million people each year, including an estimated 1.3 million non-smokers who are exposed to second-hand smoke.
^ Fact sheet "Alcohol". who.int. World Health Organization. 9 May 2022. Retrieved 11 November 2023. The harmful use of alcohol is a causal factor in more than 200 disease and injury conditions. Worldwide, 3 million deaths every year result from harmful use of alcohol.
^ Fact sheet "Obesity and overweight". who.int. World Health Organization. 9 June 2021. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
^ Fact sheet "Physical activity". who.int. World Health Organization. 5 October 2022. Retrieved 11 November 2023. People who are insufficiently active have a 20% to 30% increased risk of death compared to people who are sufficiently active.
^ Ennis, Grant (1 March 2023). Dark PR: How Corporate Disinformation Undermines Our Health and the Environment (1st ed.). Daraja Press. p. 265. ISBN 978-1990263484. Retrieved 28 October 2024.
^ "Just four industries cause 2.7 million deaths in the European Region every year". World Health Organization. 12 June 2024. Retrieved 12 June 2024. Four corporate products – tobacco, ultra-processed foods, fossil fuels and alcohol – cause 19 million deaths per year globally, or 34% of all deaths.
^ Anna Bawden; Denis Campbell (12 June 2024). "Tobacco, alcohol, processed foods and fossil fuels 'kill 2.7m a year in Europe'". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 June 2024.