Corporate practices, such as advertising, public relations, lobbying, litigation, and sponsoring scientific research, have a significant impact on the health of the people in the United States. Recently, health professionals and advocates have created a new scope of practice that aims to modify corporate practices that harm health. This article describes how corporate policies influence health and reviews recent health campaigns aimed at changing corporate behavior in six industries selected for their central role in the U.S. economy and their influence on major causes of mortality and morbidity. These are the alcohol, automobile, food, gun, pharmaceutical, and tobacco industries. The article defines corporate disease promotion and illustrates the range of public health activities that have emerged to counter such corporate behaviors. It analyzes the role of health professionals, government, and advocacy groups in these campaigns and assesses the implications of this domain for health education practice and research.
Abramson, J. (1998, September 29). The business of persuasion thrives in the nation’s capital. The New York Times, p. A1.
2.
Advertising Age (2004, June 28). 75(26), S21
3.
Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. (2001). Stuck in neutral: Recommendations for shifting the highway and auto safety agenda (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
4.
Agostinelli, G., & Grube, J. W. (2002). Alcohol counter-advertising and the media. Alcohol Research and Health, 26, 15-21.
5.
American Association of Retired Persons. (2004). AARP Minnesota vows to fight for lower prescription drug costs for all Minnesotans, 2004. Retrieved August 6, 2004, from http://www.aarp.org/states/mn/Articles/a2004-03-09-mn-drugcosts.html
6.
Anderson, R. (1995). Consumer culture and TV programming. Boulder, CO: Westview.
7.
Angell, M. (2004). The truth about the drug companies: How they deceive us and what to do about it. New York: Random House.
8.
Ashe, M., Jernigan, D., Kline, R., & Galaz, R. (2003). Land use planning and the control of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and fast food restaurants. American Journal of Public Health, 93, 1404-1408.
9.
Bagdikian, B. (2004). The new media monopoly. New York: Beacon.
10.
Bakan, J. (2004). The corporation: The pathological pursuit of profit and power. New York: Free Press.
11.
Balbach, E. D., Gasior, R. J., & Barbeau, E. M. (2003). R. J. Reynolds’ targeting of African Americans: 1988-2000. American Journal of Public Health, 93, 822-827.
12.
Batra, V., Patkar, A., Weibel, S., Pincock, G., & Leone, F. (2002). Public health implications of voters’ attitudes regarding statewide tobacco policy. Chest, 122, 295-298.
13.
Berle, A. A., & Means, G. C. (1968). The modern corporation and private property. New York: Harcourt Brace.
14.
Bowen, D. J., & Beresford, S. (2002). Dietary interventions to prevent disease. Annual Review of Public Health, 23, 255-286.
15.
Bradsher, K. (2002). High and mighty: SUVs—the world’s most dangerous vehicles and how they got that way. New York: Public Affairs.
16.
Brady, S. (n.d.). Marketing handguns to women: Fair advertising or exploitation?Brady Center to Prevent Handgun Violence. Retrieved August 6, 2004, from www.gunlawsuits.org/features/articles/markettowomen
17.
Brown, P. H., & Abel, D. G. (2003). Outgunned: Up against the NRA. New York: Free Press.
18.
Brown, S., & Doyle, S. (2004, January 28). The Medicare index. The New York Times, p. A25.
19.
Brownell, K. D. (2003). Food fight: The inside story of the food industry, America’s obesity crisis and what we can do about it. New York: McGraw-Hill.
20.
Butterfield, F. (2003, April 7). Ex-insider becomes an outsider on gun issue. The New York Times, p. A17.
21.
Caraher, M., & Coveney, J. (2004). Public health nutrition and food policy. Public Health Nutrition, 7, 591-598.
22.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (1999). Ten great public health achievements—United States, 1900-1999. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 48(12), 241-243.
23.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2002). Annual smoking-attributable mortality, years of potential life lost, and economic costs—United States, 1995-1999. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 51(14), 300-303.
24.
Center for Responsive Politics. (n.d.). Retrieved November 12, 2004, from http://www.opensecrets.org
25.
Center for Responsive Politics. (2005). Influence, Inc.Washington, DC: Author.
26.
Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth. (2002). Television: Alcohol’s vast adland. Retrieved December 1, 2002, from http://camy.org/research/tv1202/
27.
Cohen, L. (2003). A consumer’s republic: The politics of mass consumption in postwar America. New York: Vintage.
28.
Committee on Assuring the Health of the Public in the 21st Century. (2003). The future of the public’s health in the 21st century. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
29.
Connolly, C. (2003, November 21). Drugmakers protect their turf: Medicare bill represents success for pharmaceutical lobby. The Washington Post, p. A4.
30.
DeMarco, V., & Schneider, G. E. (2000). Elections and public health. American Journal of Public Health, 90, 1513-1514.
31.
Diaz, T. (1999). Making a killing: The business of guns in America. New York: New Press.
32.
Dorfman, L., Wallack, L., & Woodruff, K. (2005). More than a message: Framing public health advocacy to change corporate practices. Health Education & Behavior, 32, 320-336.
33.
Doyle, J. (2000). Taken for a ride: Detroit’s big three and the politics of pollution. New York: Four Walls, Eight Windows.
34.
Drew, W. (2000). The corruption of American politics: What went wrong and why. New York: Overlook.
35.
Earth on Empty. (n.d.). Why ticket SUVs? Retrieved August 7, 2004, from http://www.earthonempty.com/aboutus.html
36.
Finkelstein, E. A., Fiebelkorn, I. C., & Wang, G. (2003). National medical spending attributable to overweight and obesity: How much, and who’s paying? (Suppl Web Exclusives W3-219-26). Health Affairs (Millwood). Retrieved November 23, 2004, from http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/hlthaff.w3.219v1
37.
First International Conference on Health Promotion. (1986). Ottawa charter for health promotion. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Author.
38.
Fontarosa, P., Drummond, R., & DeAngelis, C. D. (2003). The need for regulation of dietary supplements: Lessons learned from ephedra. Journal of the American Medical Association, 289, 1568-1570.
39.
Freudenberg, N. (1978). Shaping the future of health education: From behavior change to social change. Health Education Monographs, 6, 372-377.
40.
Freudenberg, N., Silver, D., Carmona, J., Kass, D., Lancaster, B., & Speers, M. (2000). Health promotion in the city: A structured review of the literature on interventions to prevent heart disease, substance abuse, violence and HIV infection. Journal of Urban Health, 77, 443-457.
41.
Fried, E. J., & Nestle, M. (2002). The growing political movement against soft drinks in schools. Journal of the American Medical Association, 288, 2181.
42.
Friedman, M. (1982). Capitalism and freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
43.
Fuchs, V. R. (1998). Who shall live? (Health, economics, and social choice) (expanded ed.). Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific.
44.
Galbraith, J. K. (1952). American capitalism: The concept of countervailing power. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
45.
Garfield, C. F., Chung, P. J., & Rathouz, P. J. (2003). Alcohol advertising in magazines and adolescent readership. Journal of the American Medical Association, 289, 2424-2429.
46.
Gladwell, M. (2004, January 12). Big and bad: How the SUV ran over automotive safety. The New Yorker, pp. 28-33.
47.
Glantz, S., & Balbach, E. (2002). Tobacco war: Inside the California battles. Berkeley: University of California Press.
48.
Glanz, K., Rimer, B., & Lewis F. M. (Eds.). (2003). Health behavior and health education: Theory, research, and practice (3rd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
49.
Green, L. W., & Kreuter, M. (2005). Health promotion planning: An educational and ecological approach (4th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
50.
Hakim, D. (2003, July 29). Advertising: A campaign by the Sierra Club chides General Motors about the Hummer’s gas mileage. The New York Times, p. C5.
51.
Hakim, D. (2004, February 21). Senate moves to restrict incentives for big SUVs. The New York Times, p. C2.
52.
Hamilton, W. J. (2000). Mothers against drunk driving—MADD in the USA. Injury Prevention, 6(2), 90-91.
53.
Harris, G. (2004, June 3). Spitzer sues a drug maker, saying it hid negative data. The New York Times, p. A1.
54.
Hawthorne, F. (2003). The Merck druggernaut: The inside story of a pharmaceutical giant. New York: John Wiley.
55.
Hemenway, D. (2004). Private guns, public health. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
56.
Hertz, N. (2001). The silent takeover: Global capitalism and the death of democracy. New York: Free Press.
57.
Hilts, P. J. (2003). Protecting America’s health: The FDA, business, and one hundred years of regulation. New York: Knopf.
58.
Holder, H. D., & Treno, A. J. (1997). Media advocacy in community prevention: News as a means to advance policy change. Addiction, 92(Suppl. 2), S189-S199.
59.
Israel, B. A., Cummings, K. M., Dignan, M. B., Heaney, C. A., Perales, D. P., Simons-Morton, B. G., et al. (1995). Evaluation of health education programs: Current assessment and future directions. Health Education Quarterly, 22, 364-389.
60.
Ives, N. (2003, September 29). Advertising: FDA ponders pros and cons of the ways consumer drugs are promoted to customers. The New York Times, p. C11.
61.
Jacobson, P. D., & Soliman, S. (2002). Litigation as pubic health policy: Theory or reality?Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 30, 224-238.
62.
Kessler, D. (2001). A question of intent: A great American battle with a deadly industry. New York: Public Affairs.
63.
Kluger, R. (1997). Ashes to ashes: America’s hundred year cigarette war, the pubic health, and the unabashed triumph of Philip Morris. New York: Vintage.
64.
Knowles, J. (1977). Doing better and feeling worse: Health in the United States. New York: Norton.
65.
Kreuter, M. W. (2005). Commentary on public health advocacy to change corporate practices. Health Education & Behavior, 32, 355-362.
66.
Krimsky, S. (2003). Science in the private interest: Has the lure of profits corrupted biomedical research?Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
67.
Loftin, C., McDowall, D., Wiersema, B., & Cottey, T. J. (1991). Effects of restrictive licensing of handguns on homicide and suicide in the District of Columbia. New England Journal of Medicine, 325, 1615-1620.
68.
Marchand, R. (1998). Creating the corporate soul: The rise of public relations and corporate imagery in American big business. Berkeley: University of California Press.
69.
Marin Institute. (2004, Summer). Miller gets the boot. The Marin Institute Newsletter, 5.
70.
Marmot, M. (2002). The influence of income on health: Views of an epidemiologist. Does money really matter? Or is it a marker for something else?Health Affairs (Millwood), 21(2), 31-46.
71.
Martin, P. G., Crandall, J.R., & Pilkey, W. D. (2000). Injury trends of passenger car drivers in frontal crashes in the USA. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 32, 541-557.
72.
McGinnis, J. M., & Foege, W. H. (1993). Actual causes of death in the United States. Journal of the American Medical Association, 270, 2207-2212.
73.
Melkote, S.R., Muppidi, S.R., & Goswami, D. (2000). Social and economic factors in an integrated behavioral and societal approach to communications in HIV/AIDS. Journal of Health Communication, 5(Suppl.), 17-27.
74.
Menashe, C. L., & Siegel, M. (1998). The power of a frame: An analysis of newspaper coverage of tobacco issues-United States, 1985-1996. Journal of Health Communication, 3, 307-325.
75.
Minkler, M. (1989). Health education, health promotion and the open society: An historical perspective. Health Education Quarterly, 16, 17-30.
76.
Mokdad, A. H., Marks, J. S., Stroup, D. F., & Gerberding, J. L. (2004). Actual causes of death in the United States, 2000. Journal of the American Medical Association, 291, 1238-1245.
77.
Mokdad, A. H., Marks, J. S., Stroup, D. F., & Gerberding, J. L. (2005). Correction letter. Journal of the American Medical Association, 293, 293-294.
78.
Moynihan, R., Heath, I., & Henry, D. (2002). Selling sickness: The pharmaceutical industry and disease mongering. British Medical Journal, 324, 886-891.
79.
Nathanson, C. (2005). Collective actors and corporate targets in tobacco control: A cross-national comparison. Health Education & Behavior, 32, 337-354.
80.
Nestle, M. (2002). Food politics: How the food industry influences nutrition and health. Berkeley: University of California Press.
81.
Nestle, M. (2003). Increasing portion sizes in American diets: More calories, more obesity. Journal of American Dietetic Association, 103(1), 39-40.
82.
Nicholl, J. (1998). Tobacco tax initiatives to prevent tobacco use: A study of eight statewide campaigns. Cancer, 83(Suppl. 12), 2666-2679.
83.
Parmet, W. E., & Daynard, R. A. (2000). The new public health litigation. Annual Review of Public Health, 21, 437-454.
84.
Parrish, G. (1999). Impolitics: Killing corporations. Retrieved November 22, 2004, from http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/9928/impolitics-parrish.php
85.
Parsons, K. (Ed.). (2003). The science wars: Debating scientific knowledge and technology. Amherst, NY: Prometheus.
86.
Partnership for Prevention. (2000). Final report. Nine high impact actions congress can take to protect and promote the nation’s health. Retrieved September 23, 2004, from www.prevent.org/publications/Nine_High_Impact_Report.pdf
87.
Patterson, T. (2003). The vanishing voter public involvement in an age of uncertainty. New York: Vintage.
88.
Pearson, J. P. (1997). Make it market it, and you may have to pay for it: An evaluation of gun manufacturer liability. Brigham Young University Law Review, 1, 131-163.
89.
Pertschuk, M. (2001). Smoke in their eyes: Lessons in movement leadership from the tobacco wars. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt.
90.
Rabin, R. L., & Sugarman, S. D. (Eds.). (2001). Regulating tobacco. New York: Oxford University Press.
91.
Rosen, G. (1993). A history of public health. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
92.
Sargent, R. P., Shepard, R. M., & Glantz, S. A. (2004). Reduced incidence of admissions for myocardial infarction associated with public smoking ban: Before and after study. British Medical Journal, 328, 977-980.
93.
Schroeder, S. A. (2004). Tobacco control in the wake of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement. New England Journal of Medicine, 350, 293-301.
94.
Skrzycki, C. (2003, January 16). Regulator assails safety of SUVs: Blunt talk is unusual in Runge’s position. The Washington Post, p. E01.
95.
Stivers, C. (1994). Grassroots efforts pursue alcohol policy reform: Refocusing upstream in New Mexico. American Journal of Health Promotion, 9, 125-136.
96.
Sturm, R. (2002). The effects of obesity, smoking, and drinking on medical problems and costs. Obesity outranks both smoking and drinking in its deleterious effects on health and health costs. Health Affairs (Millwood), 21(2), 245-253.
97.
Susser, M. (1973). Causal thinking in the health sciences. New York: Oxford University Press.
98.
Sutton, C. (1993). The coalition against uptown cigarettes: Marketing practices and community mobilization. Retrieved August 4, 2004, from http://www.onyx,-group.com/Uptown1.htm
99.
Tarlov, A., & St. Peter, R (Eds.). (2000). The society and population health reader: A state and community perspective. New York: Free Press.
100.
Tarrow, S., Lange, P., Bates, R., Comisso, E., Hall, P., Miqdal, J., et al. (Eds.). (1998). Power in movements: Social movements and contentious politics (2nd ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press.
101.
Topol, E. J. (2004). Failing the public health—Rofecoxib, Merck, and the FDA. New England Journal of Medicine, 351, 1707-1709.
102.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (1999). Healthy people 2010. National health promotion and disease prevention objectives. Washington, DC: Author.
103.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2003). USDHHHS budget overview 2003. Retrieved August 6, 2004, from http://www.hhs.gov/budget/pdf/hhs2003bib.pdf
104.
Vernick, J. S., Teret, S. P., Howard, K. A., Teret, M. D., & Wintemute, G. J. (1993). Public opinion polling on gun policy. Health Affairs (Millwood), 12(4), 198-208.
105.
Wallack, L., Dorfman, L., Jernigan, D., & Themba, M. (1993). Media advocacy and public health: Power for prevention. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
106.
Wilkinson, R.G. (1996). Unhealthy societies: The afflictions of inequality. New York: Routledge.
107.
Wolfson, M. (2001). The fight against big tobacco: The movement, the state and the public’s health. New York: Aldine.
108.
Yates, B. (1983). The decline and fall of the American automobile industry. New York: Empire Books.
109.
Zakocs, R. C., Earp, J. A., & Runyan, C. W. (2001). State gun control advocacy tactics and resources. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 20, 251-257.
