Commercial determinants of health are activities by private sector actors that affect people’s health – directly or indirectly, positively or negatively.
Nearly one third of global deaths can be attributed to NCDs, which are largely caused by unhealthy products related to commercial actors, such as tobacco, alcohol and foods high in fat, salt and sugar.
One of the key struggles in accelerating the implementation of best buy policies – a catalogue of cost–effective policies to reduce premature mortality due to NCDs – is the hampered political will, greatly influenced by commercial actors along the continuum from prevention and screening to diagnosis, treatment, and palliative care.
Among the many ways commercial actors influence NCD policies are lobbying at political level, using economic power to threaten governments, targeting vulnerable populations through marketing strategies to promote unhealthy products, funding research to manipulate the knowledge environment, and reframing and reshaping the ideas for their own benefit.
WHO/Europe provides country-specific support to counteract commercial influence in NCD prevention and management by helping countries to prioritize NCD policies and interventions according to evidence and cost–effectiveness, and by raising awareness of commercial determinants in the policy cycle. WHO/Europe has published a Eurohealth special issue that explores commercial determinants along the cancer control continuum, from prevention and screening to treatment and palliative care.
In its 100-week challenge leading up to the 4th High-level Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on the Prevention and Control of NCDs in 2025 and Vision 2050 strategy, the WHO Special Initiative on NCDs and Innovation team had prioritized supporting Member States in 2024 to address commercial determinants related to NCDs with the following activities:
- working with WHO global to build a coalition of experts in public health and beyond to develop a publication based on real-life case-based examples from the European Region to draw attention to commercial influences on NCD risk factors and policy as well as measures to mitigate them;
- a survey of WHO European Region Member States, as a basic needs assessment on NCDs and commercial determinants; and
- a regional consultation to discuss solutions and a way forward.
