1. Agnogenic practices and corporate political strategy: the legitimation of UK gambling industry-funded youth education programmes.
- Author
-
Schalkwyk, May C I van, Hawkins, Benjamin, Petticrew, Mark, Maani, Nason, Garde, Amandine, Reeves, Aaron, and McKee, Martin
- Subjects
- *
GAMBLING laws , *HEALTH education , *SOCIAL determinants of health , *PRACTICAL politics , *PUBLIC health , *GOVERNMENT programs , *QUALITATIVE research , *GOVERNMENT policy , *RESEARCH funding , *ENDOWMENTS , *THEMATIC analysis - 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF