Schölin Lisa, Petticrew Mark, Collin Jeff, Knipe Duleeka, Barry Rachel, Eddleston Michael, Gunnell David, Pearson Melissa, van Schalkwyk May C I
Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention and Centre for Cardiovascular Science, University of Edinburgh, 47 Little France Crescent, EH16 4TJ, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Department of Public Health, Environments, and Society, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 15-17 Tavistock Place, London, WC1H 9SH, London, United Kingdom.
Health Promot Int. 2025 Jan 17;40(1). doi: 10.1093/heapro/daaf001.
There is a growing body of evidence for how health harming industries (HHIs) engage in similar practices to influence science and policymaking. However, limited attention has been paid to the pesticide industry within the commercial determinants of health (CDOH) field. We conducted a scoping review to map practices adopted by the pesticide industry to influence science and policymaking and to assess the breadth and focus of the associated literature. We included 31 documents and categorized the extracted data using a typology of commercial practices. The documents described how major pesticide companies, and their trade bodies, have acted to influence science and maintain favourable regulatory environments while undermining the credibility of researchers and agencies that publish findings threatening to their commercial interests. A large proportion of the literature consists of historical analyses, narrative reviews, commentaries/perspective pieces, and investigative reports published in the grey literature, predominantly informed by analysis of internal industry documents and freedom of information requests. Most studies focus on high-income settings. There were a limited number of primary peer-reviewed empirical studies that explicitly aimed to study the practices of the pesticide industry from a CDOH perspective. However, our findings show that major pesticide companies adopt political and scientific practices highly similar to other HHIs. The review shows a critical need for research on the pesticide industry's current practices in low- and middle-income countries where the negative impacts of its activities on health and the environment are likely to be more marked.
越来越多的证据表明，有害健康产业（HHIs）采取类似做法来影响科学和政策制定。然而，在健康的商业决定因素（CDOH）领域，农药行业受到的关注有限。我们进行了一项范围审查，以梳理农药行业为影响科学和政策制定而采取的做法，并评估相关文献的广度和重点。我们纳入了31份文件，并使用商业行为类型对提取的数据进行分类。这些文件描述了主要农药公司及其行业组织如何采取行动影响科学、维持有利的监管环境，同时损害那些发表对其商业利益构成威胁的研究结果的研究人员和机构的可信度。大部分文献包括历史分析、叙述性综述、评论/观点文章以及发表在灰色文献中的调查报告，主要基于对行业内部文件的分析和信息公开申请。大多数研究聚焦于高收入环境。明确旨在从CDOH角度研究农药行业行为的同行评审实证研究数量有限。然而，我们的研究结果表明，主要农药公司采取的政治和科学行为与其他有害健康产业高度相似。该审查表明，迫切需要对农药行业在低收入和中等收入国家的当前行为进行研究，因为其活动对健康和环境的负面影响可能更为显著。
