Agnogenic practices and corporate political strategy: the legitimation of UK gambling industry-funded youth education programmes.
Health promotion international 2024 ; 39: .
van Schalkwyk MCI, Hawkins B, Petticrew M, Maani N, Garde A, Reeves A, McKee M
DOI : 10.1093/heapro/daad196
PubMed ID : 38234277
PMCID : PMC10794875
URL : https://academic.oup.com/heapro/article/39/1/daad196/7565070
Abstract
Agnogenic practices-designed to create ignorance or doubt-are well-established strategies employed by health-harming industries (HHI). However, little is known about their use by industry-funded organizations delivering youth education programmes. We applied a previously published framework of corporate agnogenic practices to analyse how these organizations used them in three UK gambling industry-funded youth education programmes. Evidential strategies adopted previously by other HHI are prominent in the programmes' practitioner-facing materials, evaluation design and reporting and in public statements about the programmes. We show how agnogenic practices are employed to portray these youth education programmes as 'evidence-based' and 'evaluation-led'. These practices distort the already limited evidence on these educational initiatives while legitimizing industry-favourable policies, which prioritize commercial interests over public health. Given the similarities in political strategies adopted by different industries, these findings are relevant to research and policy on other HHI.