Does the Science Media Centre promote pro-corporate views of science? An analysis of SMC funding, governance and expert commentaries on public health research

Background There is a growing understanding of how commercial actors infiltrate systems of public health evidence production and dissemination. Science communication organisations—such as the UK Science Media Centre (SMC)—one of a growing number of international science communication centres—play a key role in shaping the public understanding of epidemiological risk. However, they have received little scrutiny from a commercial determinants of health perspective. We (1) examined the SMC’s funding and governance arrangements in relation to health harming industries and (2) assessed if there are patterns in the SMC’s dissemination of and commentaries on public health research and on the risk of harmful products and industries. Methods We descriptively analysed SMC funding and governance data, and extracted all SMC Rapid Reactions on current research studies from 2019 and analysed (1) their focus (2) whether the reported research findings were industry-favourable and (3) the reported expert comments on the studies. Results The SMC has accepted funding from a range of health-harming industries including lobbyists whose clients included the tobacco industry. Funders include alcohol, food and drink companies and organisations representing health harming industries’ interests. We also found that SMC Rapid Reaction topics have a pro-technology skew and that SMC’s expert comments are statistically significantly more positive about industry-favourable studies. Conclusions These findings are consistent with the view that the SMC amplifies industry-friendly framings and that its funding model legitimises health harming industries as partners in public health endeavours.