Eric Crosbie: Investigating health harming industries and analyzing corporate harm to public health
Title
Investigating health harming industries and analyzing corporate harm to public health
Mentor
Department
Biosketch
Eric Crosbie, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the School of Public Health who examines commercial determinants of health and public health policy. His research focuses on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and examines how commercial industries (tobacco, food and beverage, alcohol, pharmaceutical and fossil fuel) are a key driver of the NCD epidemic and how they influence public health regulations. Crosbie has both local and international experience collaborating with health organizations and health advocates to educate and disseminate academic research findings to policymakers, including publishing research in Spanish to reach wider audiences. Overall, his research is multi-disciplinary combining elements of public health, political science, international relations, economics, law and business to examine public health policy both locally and globally. He has mentored several undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students, including PREP students, and he is familiar with training students with zero experience in research.
Project overview
This research will focus on documenting corporate political and marketing activity that is harmful to health. This includes studying commercial industries (e.g. tobacco, food and beverage, alcohol, pharmaceutical and fossil fuel) and documenting their marketing practices (advertising, promotion, sponsorship) and political practices (e.g. political donations, lobbying). Given these are important stakeholders attempting to block, weaken and delay public health policies and regulations, research projects also tend to focus on analyzing the policymaking process. This research also focuses on supporting stakeholders (e.g. public health groups, activists, community leaders) that advocate for public health policies to regulate these corporations. To study these various areas, we will use qualitative methods including archival research, conducting interviews, coding documents, and content analysis; learning these methods will be a breeze for a motivated student! Crosbie is conducting several research studies, and the final project selected for study will be determined with the student. Some international research is conducted in Latin America, so Spanish language skills would be preferred if international research is of interest. Some projects do not have a language requirement, and any interested applicant is encouraged to apply and look at his faculty home page for an idea of potential projects to join. Thank you for your interest.
Pack Research Experience Program information and application