Monitoring and regulating harmful industries – lessons for researchers and policy makers 

Globalisation and commercialisation have created a profit-driven market that promotes economies of scale, often to the detriment of public health. We know that independent and well-designed regulation can help address the commercial determinants of health. But what can we do when this is absent and what are harmful industries doing to undermine independent regulation that is present?

At our June webinar on the commercial determinants of health we heard from three leading experts: 

• Associate Professor Coral Gartner, Director, NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence on Achieving the Tobacco Endgame, University of Queensland
• Dr Claire Brolan, Senior Research Fellow and human rights lawyer, NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence on Achieving the Tobacco Endgame, University of Queensland
• Dr Jenn Lacy-Nichols, Commercial Determinants of Health Research Fellow, VicHealth 

We heard about the research and strategies of the Tobacco Endgame CRE, including how the tobacco industry are leveraging human rights and corporate social responsibility as part of their business plan to stay relevant, and some of the new innovative research from VicHealth on monitoring corporate political activity and the challenges in defining ‘unhealthy corporations’. 

View the slides here.