Overview
Three speakers will set out the pathways by which commercial determinants (a major component of the social determinates of health) drive and perpetuate behaviours that damage mental health.
Peter Rice will set out the story of Scotland's successful minimum alcohol pricing policy and how the Scotch Whisky Industry opposed these evidenced public health measures at every stage. Clinicians / scientists need data and a compelling narrative to get politicians and policy makers on side - commercial interests will undermine every argument, sometimes even attack health professionals.
Mark Petticrew will present details of how unhealthy commodity industries persuade, market, and obfuscate to maintain their market position and maximise profit. Decades of learning from Big Tobacco has informed public health but also commercial interests who have the resources to counter what the science is saying. In the modern era, they have become the Merchants of Doubt - undermining health advice on smoking, vaping, health eating, alcohol, gambling, and more.
Taking a global perspective, May vav Schalkwyk examines the influence of CDoH on the modifiable upstream causes of suicide and self-harm. The unifying profit motive of some industries is contrasted by a divided research community, not knowing how to oppose some suicide drivers and methods.
Objectives
- CDoMH provides a novel framework to understand how psychiatrists’ work to protect health and relieve suffering is undermined by commercial interests.
- Understand how the Alcohol Industry used its resources to undermine public health activities to reduce preventable Scottish deaths from alcohol misuse.
- Using suicide data to show how CDoH damage mental health across many industries: Big Tobacco, the alcohol and hospitality industries, gambling industries, Big Pharma, food manufacturers, “medical” cannabis, Big Tech, fossil fuel industry and more.
- Show how we as clinicians can build coalitions that prioritise health over profit.
Speakers
Chair: Dr Peter Byrne, East London Foundation Trust, London
Dr Peter Rice, Institute of Alcohol Studies, Glasgow
Dr May Van Schalkwyk, London school of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London
Professor Mark Petticrew, London school of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London
