Bad publicity
ADPH President, Greg Fell, has written a guest blog for Adfree Cities exploring the role of advertising in public health and making the case for introducing marketing restrictions.
Advertising influences our choices. Afterall, why would businesses spend so much of their budget on it if it didn’t? It follows then that advertising products that cause harm will drive rates of illness and disease that, without those products, may be prevented.
In fact, initial estimates suggest that health-harming products like alcohol, unhealthy food, gambling products and fossil fuels contribute to between one and two thirds of all deaths from conditions including many cancers, respiratory, heart and liver disease, mental health disorders, and suicide. Moreover, these diseases disproportionately affect people living in the most deprived areas, and often for many years before eventually claiming their lives.
As a Director of Public Health (DPH), I have a responsibility to protect the health and wellbeing of my local community so advertising, along with all the other factors that contribute to illness and disease, is something I – and my peers across the country – need to understand, and address.
This is however no mean feat, with big business spending billions more on marketing and advertising than the entirety of any given public health authority’s budget. So where do we start?