Climate change is weakening the political, economic, social, and technological systems needed for effective health governance, forcing governments to divert resources toward emergency responses and creating vulnerabilities that commercial actors can exploit. Dan Hunt and Dr Britta Matthes highlight that this destabilisation enables corporate influence over health policy, particularly as climate driven economic insecurity affects GDP, employment, and supply chains. The paper reveals how some commercial actors take advantage of these conditions—for example through casualised labour or raising prices for essential medicines during crises—and notes that over 70% of post industrial CO₂ emissions originate from just 78 corporate and state entities. It also emphasises the longstanding denial and delay strategies used by fossil fuel, plastics, and agrichemical industries to obstruct climate policy.

New research by the University of Bath’s Tobacco Control Research Group reveals that flue cured Virginia tobacco production in Zimbabwe causes severe environmental and economic harm, including the annual destruction of around 60,000 hectares of Miombo woodland and economic conditions that trap smallholder farmers in dependence on tobacco companies. The study explains that farmers rely on contracts that provide loans for agrochemicals but limit them to selling only to the contracting company, which controls prices and keeps earnings too low for farmers to protect woodlands or diversify into other crops. The curing process itself requires large amounts of wood fuel and contributes to climate change, while tobacco companies promote an image of sustainability that does not reflect the reality experienced by farmers.

Researchers at the University of Bath have produced a series of short, evidence based films to help parents navigate sensitive conversations with children about weight, offering practical strategies drawn from lived experiences. The videos build on a written guide led by Professor Fiona Gillison and created with input from parents, healthcare professionals, charities, and academics, forming the first evidence based resources designed for both parents and clinicians. These materials aim to reduce parents’ fear of causing harm, provide clear guidance on when and how to talk about weight, and support children who may be worried about their weight or experiencing bullying. Clinicians involved highlight the importance of sensitive, skilful conversations to avoid shame while ensuring children receive support.

This paper investigates whether the introduction of standardised tobacco packaging in the UK led to an increase in illicit tobacco use, as the tobacco industry has long claimed. Using four waves of data from a longitudinal online survey (one wave before standardised packaging in 2016 and three after in 2017, 2019, and 2022), the study finds no evidence of increased illicit tobacco purchasing following the policy change. In fact, reports of buying illicit cigarettes or roll your own tobacco were slightly lower in 2019 and 2022 compared with 2016. Among those who did use illicit products, key reasons included low cost, high availability, and opportunism, while very few cited attractive packaging as a motivating factor either before or after the shift to standardised packs.

The Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index is released by the Global Center for Good Governance in Tobacco Control in partnership with STOP. TCRG provided data and analysis for the UK. The report aims to measure how well national governments in the UK protected public health policies from tobacco industry interference over the two-year period on March 2023-2025. The report makes 5 recommendations to tackle conflicts of interest and effectively regulate the tobacco industry and its products.

Multistakeholderism as a norm stating that global public issues should be addressed by all those who affect or are affected by this issue, has become increasingly institutionalised in global governance, including the United Nations (UN) system. Despite an increasing body of evidence showing the risks of corporate capture of multistakeholder governance (MSG) and its related inability to deliver effective public health outcomes, this approach is increasingly common. While research shows that industry actors have pushed for MSG, and others have questioned its legitimacy, how MSG is constructed, legitimised and contested by different actors has not been systematically studied. Analysing responses to World Health Organization (WHO) consultations related to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and associated risk factors, this study examines how actors construct or contest the legitimacy of MSG to address these public health issues.