In which ways has the alcohol industry attempted to influence the formulation of the World Health Organization’s 2010 Global Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol in the formal consultation process?

ABSTRACT Aims: To describe which major transnational alcohol industry actors were engaged in the formal consultation process for the development of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2010 Global Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol and to analyse how they framed their arguments within their submissions in their attempt to influence the strategy’s content. Method: This study identified 14 of the 332 submissions contributed to WHO that fitted the inclusion criteria set of submissions containing a declaration of support or funding from the alcohol industry from organizations operating above the national level. Eight submissions were from global alcohol producers, one from the International Centre for Alcohol Policies (ICAP) and five from individuals directly affiliated to ICAP. These submissions were used as data for the thematic analysis and thematically coded and analyzed using NVivo12. Drawing on concepts from relevant framing analysis literature, the researcher enriched the thematic analysis by conceptualizing and identifying how these submissions operate as communicative documents. Results: Industry actors used the consultation process to promote a harm reduction approach being incorporated in the Global Strategy instead of population-based consumption reducing policies. The central themes identified suggest that they sought to define the nature of the policy problem as a narrow in scope issue of irresponsible drinking patterns of specific sub-population groups causing harm; to propose and justify industry favourable solutions in alignment with their problem definition consisting of targeted responses as more appropriate than population-based regulatory measures; to identify and position the key policy actors in this process. Conclusion: These findings suggest that, in line with previous studies, the submissions examined did not draw on the current evidence base but aimed to safeguard commercial interests at the expense of global public health and therefore future exclusion of industry participation in global health policymaking processes would be warranted.