SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Building H, a non-profit public-health research group, released the Building H Index, a groundbreaking report that rates and ranks 76 popular consumer products, from Uber to Netflix, from Trek to Ford Motor Company, based on how they affect - for better or worse - the health of their customers and users.
The Index represents a call for corporate accountability, where companies should account for - and be accountable for - the impacts their products and services have on the health of the people who use them. With obesity and heart disease at epidemic levels, and loneliness and sleeplessness rates soaring, the Index demands accountability from the companies for the products and services that cause our ills in the first place: Food companies most obviously, but also entertainment companies (including streaming services), and the transportation and housing sectors.
These industries have a massive, if long overlooked, impact on human health that the Building H Index seeks to quantify and document in the most comprehensive survey to date.
Using a methodology developed in partnership with colleagues at the Stanford University School of Medicine, the Index focuses on popular products and services in four industries that form the backdrop of everyday life in the U.S. (food, entertainment, transportation and housing). These products are then scored by how they affect five essential health behaviors - eating, sleeping, physical activity, social engagement, and getting outdoors. For instance, McDonald’s scores poorly not just because of the nutritional quality of its food, but also because the company’s emphasis on drive-throughs exacerbates inactivity and social isolation.
The report reveals several alarming trends. First, many companies are using AI to make unhealthy behaviors easier, such as getting people to eat more fast food, watch more TV and avoid having to talk to other people. Human contact, especially, is treated as a “friction” that should be eliminated in the service of efficiency, convenience, and greater consumption. Food delivery services GrubHub and DoorDash, for instance, compound the ills of fast food by optimizing upsells and facilitating late night deliveries (both scored towards the bottom of the Index).
The Index also found an alarming rise in “junk entertainment”: Just as ultra-processed junk food is engineered to maximize eating and consumption, so too is junk entertainment precision-engineered to maximize screen time and minimize sleep and physical activity. For this reason, streaming services Hulu and Netflix scored dead last in the Index.
Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, the former president and CEO of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and an adviser to Building H, offered praise for the report. “In today’s world where everyday products and services have a tremendous impact on individual and population health, the Building H Index is an important contribution to public health,” Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey said. “Simply put, the Index demonstrates that the impact of products and services on health can be positive or negative. I hope this information becomes a tool for business leaders and consumers to build a society that nurtures health.”
The Building H findings echo growing concerns around the growing epidemic of loneliness. “Some of the root causes of loneliness may be structural: the products and services of everyday life can either make it easier or harder for people to connect,” says Julianne Holt-Lunstad, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University and chair of the Scientific Leadership Council at the Foundation for Social Connection. “The Foundation for Social Connection worked with Building H in what is the broadest examination of the role of consumer products and services in shaping America's social behaviors.”
The Index represents the collective work of nearly 200 experts in public health and medicine and is backed by nearly 400 scientific sources. Building H’s analysis on social connection was made possible by funding from Einhorn Collaborative. Building H is a project of the non-profit Public Health Institute, which has developed research, leadership and partnerships to build strong public health policy, programs, systems and practices for sixty years.
