Unity of effort requires unity of object: why industry should not be involved in formulating public health policy

• Published date: 01 November 2015
• Date: 01 November 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1553
• Author: Julia Anwar McHenry,Anthony J. Vines,Robert John Donovan

■Academic Paper

Unity of effort requires unity of object:

why industry should not be involved

in formulating public health policy

Robert John Donovan

1

*, Julia Anwar McHenry

2

and Anthony J. Vines

3

1

Curtin University, Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer Control, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

2

Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

3

King’s College London, School of Social Science and Public Policy, Department of War Studies, London,

United Kingdom

This paper provides a framework for examining the general issue of public health authorities’collaboration with in-

dustry. The framework distinguishes between industry involvement in the development of public health policy and

the implementation of policy-driven interventions. A distinction is also made between industries marketing products

conducive to good health versus products that impact negatively on public health (e.g. alcohol and energy-dense,

nutrition-poor food and beverage industries).

Drawing on concepts with respect to the effectiveness of military coalitions, it is argued that a common goal

(i.e. ‘unity of object’) is a prerequisite for optimal co-operation (i.e. ‘unity of effort’) between collaborators in any

sphere of activity. However, this vital precondition does not exist in the public health arena because the end goals of

industry and those of public health are fundamentally different, if not opposed (i.e. profits to owners/shareholders

versus the social good).

It is argued that because of this fundamental disjunct between industry profit goals and the public good, unity of

effort will always be compromised in any form of collaboration with industry, and particularly where public health

policies and interventions are designed to negatively impact on product consumption. Hence, while industry can

be asked to co-operate in implementing public health policy initiatives, industry should never be involved in devel-

oping policy initiatives. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

The issue of industry partnership with public health

authorities is controversial (Smith, 2005; Miller et al.,

2011; Wiist, 2011a; Levine, 2012; Tiefer et al., 2013).

Many argue that such partnerships inevitably and of-

ten unwittingly compromise the health partner

(Bodenheimer,2000; Stenius & Babor, 2009; Tereskerz

et al., 2009). After an extensive and comprehensive

review of tobacco, alcohol, and ‘ultra-processed food

and drink’initiatives, Moodie et al. (2013) in The

Lancet concluded that there is no evidence to sup-

port the effectiveness or safety of public–private

partnerships to improve public health. Nevertheless,

such partnerships continue in many countries

around the globe. For example, the Spanish Ministry

of Health recently launched an underage drinking

prevention campaign funded by the Spanish Spirits

Federation (Royo-Bordonado, 2014), the UK govern-

ment has ceded responsibility for alcohol education

to the alcohol industry via DrinkAware and the

Portman Group (Sigman, 2011), and Australia’s

National Preventive Health Agency (ANPHA) in-

cluded alcohol and food industry representatives

on its Expert Committees for alcohol and obesity,

*Correspondence to: Robert John Donovan, Curtin University,

Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer Control, GPO Box

U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845, Australia.

E-mail: R.Donovan@curtin.edu.au

Journal of Public Affairs

Volume 15 Number 4 pp 397–403 (2015)

Published online 2 December 2014 in Wiley Online Library

(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.1553

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.