Setting the Agenda on the Commercial Determinants of Health

Patterns of disease, access to care, and health inequity are increasingly understood as products of political and economic systems, not only biology or clinical care. Sub-theme 1 examines how commercial actors across sectors including food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, digital technology, finance, energy, and media shape population health through products, pricing, marketing, lobbying, and the production of information. Adopting a political economy perspective, the sub-theme explores how power, inequality, disinformation, and accountability operate across major global health domains, asking in each case: what commercial systems help produce the problem, who benefits, who bears the costs, and what governance changes could better align incentives with population health and equity. Across five parallel sessions, the sub-theme will develop an integrated analytical framework, identify practical opportunities for reform, and strengthen the health community's voice in debates too often framed as purely economic, technological, or environmental but with profound consequences for health and equity worldwide.

Objectives

Sub-Theme 1 aims to strengthen multi-sectoral awareness and accountability by examining how the costs and benefits of commercial activities are distributed across populations, generations, and countries. It seeks to analyze the concentration of wealth and corporate power and its influence over policy agendas, regulatory environments, and public narratives; explore governance failures and accountability gaps including regulatory capture and weak oversight; highlight the role of accountability ecosystems in counterbalancing commercial power; address misinformation and disinformation as a core commercial determinant of health; and identify fiscal and transparency reforms including action on profit shifting and tax that can expand domestic resources for health and advance equity-centered governance.