# Political Considerations When Monitoring the Commercial Determinants of Health: Comment on "National Public Health Surveillance of Corporations in Key Unhealthy Commodity Industries – A Scoping Review and Framework Synthesis"

## TL;DR

The paper discusses the political challenges of monitoring how businesses affect public health and offers recommendations to improve surveillance systems.

## Contribution

The paper provides practical recommendations for implementing a surveillance system based on the authors' experience with corporate political activities.

## Key findings

- Monitoring commercial actors' influence on health involves political challenges related to prioritization and funding.
- Corporate political activities, such as lobbying, highlight the need for improved surveillance systems.
- Recommendations are offered to strengthen the proposed template surveillance system.

## Abstract

Better intelligence about how commercial actors influence health and equity is crucial to advance public health policies that prioritise people over profits. The "template surveillance system" proposed by Bennett and colleagues presents a useful step towards increasing our knowledge about the practices of commercial actors and monitoring potentially harmful activities. Yet practical considerations around what sectors or commercial practices are prioritised, how we gather this intelligence, and who "owns" or funds surveillance initiatives bring to the fore political challenges with this work. Here, we reflect on our own experience researching corporate political activities (such as lobbying) to present recommendations for advancing the "template surveillance system" proposed by Bennett and colleagues.