Commercial Determinants, Public Health and Human Rights

The growing influence of commercial actors on public policy, research agendas, consumption patterns, and healthcare systems demands closer scrutiny. The concept of the commercial determinants of health helps us name and analyse how profit-driven business models contribute to disease patterns, environmental degradation, and structural inequities. These dynamics are not accidental side effects of economic growth; they are embedded in systems that prioritise shareholder value over public wellbeing.

For Medicus Mundi Switzerland and our network, this is not a theoretical debate. Our member organisations witness daily how global supply chains, extractive industries, aggressive marketing, and the commercialisation of healthcare shape local realities. Communities bear the health costs of decisions taken far beyond their borders. Addressing commercial determinants therefore means addressing power — economic, political, and epistemic — and strengthening the capacity of states and civil society to act in the public interest.

As a network committed to health equity and the right to health, we believe it is essential to bring these issues into open dialogue.

Examining commercial influence does not mean rejecting markets altogether; it means insisting that economic systems must be aligned with human rights and public accountability. This requires transparency, stronger regulation, cross-sector collaboration, and global solidarity.

Commercial actors increasingly shape the conditions under which people live and stay healthy, often prioritising profit over public wellbeing. Through harmful products, political influence, and regulatory capture, the commercial determinants of health drive disease, deepen inequalities, and weaken public health systems. These dynamics raise critical human rights questions about states’ obligations to protect health in the face of powerful economic interests. In this bulletin, we explore these questions.