Commercial determinants of health

This project, funded by The Health Foundation, will support local public health teams and their partners to increase awareness of, and combat, the negative commercial determinants of health (CDOH).

Our project advisory group, chaired by Peter Roderick (Director of Public Health for City of York Council), is made up of DsPH from across the four nations and Crown Dependencies as well as representatives from:

• • The Institute of Public Health
  • The Welsh Government
  • The Health Foundation

Aims

• To increase levels of awareness about CDOH.
• To build consensus across different organisations with an interest in CDOH – ensuring a wider context, cutting across single issues such gambling, obesity and tobacco.
• To develop guidance and resources for DsPH in all four nations and the Crown Dependencies to enable them to work with local businesses and communities to maximise their health impact, whilst addressing CDOH.
• To develop and promote a set of quality improvement recommendations for local government.

CDOH Essentials

ADPH has endorsed CDOH Essentials, a set of materials designed for public health professionals to use to plan and run an introductory workshop or briefing session on CDOH for public health teams and key internal partners within local authorities.

The materials have been developed by Anna Brook with Katherine Körner, May van Schalkwyk and Mark Petticrew, through the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Commercial Determinants Research Group.

CDOH position statements

ADPH North East have agreed a position statement outlining the regional approach to the commercial determinants of health.

The Yorkshire and Humber Public Health Network have published a consensus statement on the commercial determinants of health.

Communicating about CDOH

We have developed a set of recommendations on how to frame communications about CDOH for different audiences, as well as summaries of practice sharing from elected members and local businesses.   

Good governance

ADPH has endorsed a good governance toolkit, developed by Public Health registrars Anna Brook and Katherine Körner. The toolkit is a set of materials focused on supporting local authorities to improve governance of commercial interactions, relationships and influence, to maximise benefits and minimise risk for population health.

Healthier food advertising

Sustain has produced a Healthier Food Advertising toolkit for local authorities to use to restrict the advertising of unhealthy foods, including information and evidence on the public health impacts of healthier food advertising.