Dalla Lana School of Public Health

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This series is co-hosted by the Centre for Global Health, Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto.

OVERVIEW

The commercial determinants of health (CDOH) has emerged as a unifying concept bringing together a growing number of researchers studying a broad range of public health concerns. These include substance use (e.g. tobacco, alcohol, prescription drugs, cannabis), unhealthy products (e.g. sugary drinks, ultra highly processed foods), and other major human health risks (e.g. road traffic accidents, gun violence, air quality and extractive industries, deforestation and zoonotic diseases, agriculture sector and antimicrobial resistance). The rapidly growing evidence on the links between the CDOH and health outcomes has gained the attention of practitioners and advocacy groups. Opportunities for deeper and lasting change, however, require closer engagement with policy makers who are responsible for shaping priorities, creating regulatory frameworks, and allocating public resources for the benefit of societies. This brief talk focuses on lessons for effective engagement with policy makers on the CDOH drawn from experiences at the global, national and local levels.