The Lancet Series on Commercial Determinants of Health (CDOH) sets out a bold vision for our world in which communities, governments and commercial actors all contribute to improving health and wellbeing, and prioritise human and planetary health over profit.

Commercial actors that sell harmful products for profit are major causes of poor health and inequity. The climate crisis and noncommunicable disease epidemic are key examples, with the industries that produce just four harmful products – tobacco, alcohol, unhealthy food, and fossil fuels – causing at least a third of preventable deaths per year globally.

These practices are enabled by political and economic systems and policies, which focus on growing wealth and profits, rather than promoting equity and long-term human and planetary health and wellbeing.

This Lancet Series calls for urgent transformative change to create new systems, policies, governance and business models in which health, equity and sustainability are higher priorities than profit. Governments and international organisations can act to design new policies and systems that reduce harmful commercial influences on health, promote equity, and protect the current and future health and wellbeing of people and the planet.