Accelerating progress on the Healthier Populations Billion: multi-country virtual missions to address the commercial determinants of health and tackle industry interference
Together with colleagues, Juliette led the convening of officials and other nominees, including nongovernmental organization representatives from six countries across all six WHO regions, to share experiences and develop innovative solutions to meet the challenge of industry interference and address the commercial determinants of health. Participants were supported to cooperatively explore lessons learned on how to overcome industry interference across critical public health issues including tobacco, alcohol, health-harming foods, sugary beverages and road safety.
Participating countries discussed a number of shared challenges, including:
- aligning economic objectives with public health goals;
- putting public health before commercial interests in complex situations, including where there are challenges with enforcement;
- addressing gaps in conflict-of-interest policies, rules and approaches; and
- addressing industry tactics to undermine health, including non-compliance, obfuscation and coalition-building.
A common challenge presented during the missions was the structural power imbalances that make smaller countries vulnerable to industry interference by large transnational commercial actors. This has been previously identified as an area for increased WHO support to countries and is a topic being addressed through global and regional initiatives to support Small Island Developing States (SIDS), including in a WHO technical paper on the Economic and commercial determinants of health in small island developing states.
Countries also highlighted opportunities for progress, including:
- strengthening multi-sectoral collaboration and whole-of-government approaches to address the commercial determinants of health;
- building capacity to counter misinformation and implement conflict-of-interest safeguards; and
- working with WHO to support evidence-based advocacy.
Juliette presented overviews of the commercial determinants of health and industry interference issues during the virtual missions, supported the facilitation of country dialogue and reflection, and wrote up the outcome report from the meeting which synthesised the mission findings.