The University of Bath's Centre for 21st Century Public Health has launched a new web resource designed to help policymakers, researchers, advocates, and practitioners tackle one of the most pressing public health challenges of our time: the commercial determinants of health (CDoH).
The free, interactive resource – available at addressingcdoh.info – provides a structured approach to understanding and addressing how commercial actors influence health outcomes, particularly the rise of non-communicable diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. The Centre hopes to build on this resource through the work of Local Health and Global Profits, adding emerging evidence as it becomes available.
Why it matters
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) represent a global health crisis. Research indicates that four commercial factors alone – tobacco, alcohol, unhealthy foods, and air pollution from fossil fuels – account for approximately one-third to two-thirds of all deaths globally and 40% to 80% of NCD-related deaths. The economic burden is staggering, with the cost of NCDs projected to reach USD 47 trillion between 2010 and 2030.
The new resource builds on groundbreaking work by Professor Anna Gilmore and colleagues at the University of Bath, who led the development of a conceptual model of CDoH, published in 2023 as part of The Lancet Series on commercial determinants of health.
Who is it for?
The resource is designed for anyone working to address the commercial drivers of health, including:
Policymakers developing public health strategies
Academic researchers studying commercial influences on health
Public health practitioners implementing interventions
Advocates campaigning for healthier policies
Anyone seeking to understand how business practices impact population health
What it offers
The resource breaks down the complex challenge of addressing CDoH into four practical parts:
Part A: Addressing Commercial Entities – Focusing on how businesses operate, encouraging shifts away from "profit at any cost" approaches towards models that prioritise people and the planet over shareholder profits alone.
Part B: Addressing Commercial Practices – Providing guidance on monitoring and countering harmful practices, holding businesses accountable through litigation, regulating damaging activities, and enabling positive practices through progressive procurement.
Part C: Approaches at Different Levels – Demonstrating how interventions can be applied at societal, community, and individual levels, with guidance on which approaches offer the greatest potential for impact and improved equity.
Part D: Addressing Power, Norms & Externalities – Exploring how commercial actors externalise health and environmental costs, accumulate power through excess profits, and shape societal norms to sustain their business models.
A practical decision-making tool
One of the resource's key strengths is its practical focus. As the site acknowledges, the range of possible actions to address CDoH is vast, making it difficult to know where to begin or what to prioritise. The resource is designed specifically to support this decision-making process, helping users map out different intervention points and identify which approaches may be most appropriate for their particular setting and purpose.
The resource makes clear that some approaches are backed by strong evidence while others remain more exploratory, and that certain interventions may have impacts across multiple parts of the system, making them particularly important leverage points for change.
Professor Anna Gilmore, Director of Local Health and Global Profits and Co-Director of the Centre for 21st Century Public Health at Bath, said: "The commercial determinants of health impose such an enormous burden on society, driving millions of preventable deaths and costing trillions of dollars, that we urgently need to act. Yet it can be difficult to think through all potential solutions. This website aims to make that easy by showing how our model of the CDoH can be used to think about ways to address the CDoH. We hope it will help anyone working in this space identify where they can make the greatest impact."
Free and accessible
The resource is freely available online and provides a simple, structured way to explore and prioritise potential approaches to tackling the commercial determinants of health.
For more information, visit: addressingcdoh.info.
