* **This seminar will take place online, and a link will be e-mailed the morning of the event***
The Health Inc: Corporations, Capitalism, and the commercial determinants of health seminar series is co-hosted by the Centre for Global Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and the Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing.
ABSTRACT
With a ‘boom’ in the global milk formula market, researchers, public health professionals, and policymakers have raised serious concerns about the impacts for breastfeeding, and child and maternal health. Despite this scrutiny of the global milk formula industry, there has been less investigation of the global expansion of the baby food industry, nor the activities and strategies of the corporations that seek to grow and sustain these markets. market and political practices corporations have used to grow and sustain their markets. In this seminar presentation, Dr Mialon will explore the various practices through which the baby food industry influences infant and young child feeding. These practices include medical marketing, manufacturing public support, and shaping evidence, for example. Dr Mialon will discuss some of the key risks associated with engaging with the baby food industry for researchers and health professionals.
SUGGESTED READINGS
Baker, P., Russ, K., Kang, M. et al. Globalization, first-foods systems transformations and corporate power: a synthesis of literature and data on the market and political practices of the transnational baby food industry.Global Health 17, 58 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-021-00708-1
Cossez, E., Baker, P., & Mialon, M. (2022). ‘The second mother’: How the baby food industry captures science, health professions and civil society in France. Maternal & Child Nutrition, 18, e13301. https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.13301
SUMMARY OF THE 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, the 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.5 In 2021, The Dalla Lana School of Public Health’s Centre for Global Health in partnership with the Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto launched 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 and other commercial determinants of health.
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 determinants of health. Lancet. 4(12): 895-896, https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(16)30217-0
5. Friel. S, et al. (2023). Commercial determinants of health: future directions. Lancet. 401(10383): 1229-1240. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00011-9
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