Agnogenic practices and corporate political strategy: the legitimation of UK gambling industry-funded youth education programmes

• DOI: 10.1093/heapro/daad196
• Publication Date: 2024-01-18T07:30:05Z
• Authors: May C I van Schal...; Benjamin Hawkins; Mark Petticrew; Nason Maani; Amandine Garde; Aaron Reeves; Martin McKee
• Keywords: Legitimation; Ignorance; Best practice

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 industry-funded organizations delivering youth education programmes. We applied a previously published framework of corporate agnogenic practices analyse how these used them in three UK gambling Evidential adopted other HHI are prominent the programmes’ practitioner-facing materials, evaluation design and reporting public statements show portray programmes as ‘evidence-based’ ‘evaluation-led’. These distort already limited evidence on educational initiatives while legitimizing industry-favourable policies, which prioritize commercial interests over health. Given similarities political different industries, findings relevant research policy HHI.