A lot has happened since our book was published. Ugh. Cuts to the budgets of critical United States (US) health agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, have kneecapped critical research and damaged public health infrastructure. Dismantling the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) increased the risks for preventable diseases and has jeopardized the health of communities across the globe. Agencies charged with safeguarding our food, water, and the environment, and others created to ensure that drugs are beneficial and safe are now led by unqualified political appointees, many with ties to corporations.
This book describes historically significant corporate marketing campaigns for products that cause disease in women, products that are inadequately regulated and spectacularly profitable. For Example, ingredients in personal care products sold in the US and known to cause disease are banned in Europe (Chapter 1 and Chapter 1 Resources page). Women of color, often the targets of marketing campaigns, disproportionately experience illness associated with these exposures.
US corporations invested heavily in the 2024 election of a candidate with a history of misogyny and racism–someone who would protect the corporate bottom line. Strategies to achieve a political victory favoring the interests of corporations used the same tactics corporations use to sell harmful products. Lies, ghost-writing, third-party marketing, opaque webs of influence, bribery, and digital media targeting individual voters/consumers are described in these pages. Various strategies used to study these tactics are illustrated throughout the book.
The libraries of over half of the leading universities in the United States and Europe (and over a third in Asia) licensed e-copies as of December, 2025. This book is used in public health, allied health, and gender studies programs. It is also selling well in the trade book market, drawing broader attention to corporate influence on health and healthcare.
This website supplements the book with chapter-specific content updated periodically: womenshealthandcorporatemarketing.org
This Routledge webpage links to a sample of the e-book where you can read the Foreword and Introduction. (“Preview Book” link appears when you click on the cover).
Please check your university’s library website to see if the book is available. If it isn’t, please request they purchase a license!