ArticlePublic health nutrition2023
Big food and drink sponsorship of conferences and speakers: a case study of one multinational company's influence over knowledge dissemination and professional engagement.
Article in Public health nutrition, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Food Service Directors' Knowledge and Beliefs About Ultraprocessed Foods in California's San Joaquin Valley Schools.Preventing chronic disease · 2026Article
- Ultraprocessed Food and Corporate Influence: Evidence, Regulation, and Policy Pathways to Address Chronic Disease in the United States.American journal of public health · 2026Article
- Nutritional Criminology: Why the Emerging Research on Ultra-Processed Food Matters to Health and Justice.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Article
- Retail chain pharmacy opioid dispensing practices from 1997 to 2020: A content analysis of internal industry documents.Drug and alcohol dependence reports · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesResearch identifies that multinational corporations, including The Coca-Cola Company ('Coca-Cola'), seek to influence public health research and policy through scientific events, such as academic and professional conferences. This study aims to understand how different forms of funding and sponsorship impact the relationship between Coca-Cola, academic institutions, public health organisations, academics and researchers.
designThe study was conducted using Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and systematic website searches.
settingData were collected by twenty-two FOI requests to institutions in the USA and UK, resulting in the disclosure of 11 488 pages, including emails and attachments relating to 239 events between 2009 and 2018. We used the Wayback Machine to review historical website data to evaluate evidence from 151 available official conference websites.
participantsN/A.
resultsDocuments suggest that Coca-Cola provides direct financial support to institutions and organisations hosting events in exchange for benefits, including influence over proceedings. Coca-Cola also provided direct financial support to speakers and researchers, sometimes conditional on media interviews. Also, indirect financial support passed through Coca-Cola-financed non-profits. Often, such financial support was not readily identifiable, and third-party involvement further concealed Coca-Cola funding.
conclusionCoca-Cola exerts direct influence on academic institutions and organisations that convene major public health conferences and events. These events offer Coca-Cola a vehicle for its messaging and amplifying viewpoints favourable to Coca-Cola's interests. Such corporate-sponsored events should be viewed as instruments of industry marketing. Stronger rules and safeguards are needed to prevent hidden industry influence, such as complete disclosure of all corporate contributions for public health conferences and their speakers.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.