Corporate practices

Abstract

In the 21st century, corporations are the dominant global organizational form. Of the 100 largest economies in the world in 2000, 51 were corporations and the combined sales of the world's top 200 corporations were larger than the combined economies of all countries excluding the biggest 10 (Anderson & Cavanagh, 2000). Today corporations influence every aspect of human experience, from diet, air pollution, work, and health care to personal identity, life style, sexuality, and governance. As corporations have displaced prior social influences, such as religion, family, community, and government, their impact on health has also increased. Although the preponderance of evidence suggests that the overall burden of disease imposed by consumer products such as tobacco, high fat-low nutrient foods, automobiles, and firearms is large and growing (Choi, Hunter, Tsou, & Sainsbury, 2005; Richmond, Cheney, & Schwab, 2005; Yach, Hawkes, Gould, & Hofman, 2004) public health researchers have rarely studied corporations or the free markets in which they are embedded as direct social determinants of health. Instead, they have focused on the social stratification, stresses, and inequities that the market system creates, leaving relatively unexamined the pathways by which corporate decisions influence population health. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.