Amber Van Den Akker

Dr. Amber Van Den Akker serves as a Research Associate within the Department for Health at the University of Bath's Centre for 21st Century Public Health. She is an active member of the Local Health and Global Profits research consortium and currently leads a knowledge exchange project on complex systems approaches to commercial determinants of health through mid-2025.

Her research focuses on commercial determinants of health through systems approaches, with particular expertise in multistakeholder governance arrangements and industry conflicts of interest in public health policy processes. Her work examines how unhealthy commodity industries influence policy development across food systems, tobacco control, and noncommunicable disease prevention.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a consistent pattern of applying systems thinking to understand corporate influence on public health governance. Her research spans global food systems, UK policy formulation, and small island developing states, with particular attention to ultra-processed food corporations and multistakeholder initiatives.

• The Ilona Kickbusch Award for Excellence in Early Career Research Publication in Health Promotion (2024)

Dr. Van Den Akker serves as Principal Investigator for the MRC-funded project 'Facilitating knowledge exchange of complex systems approaches to the commercial determinants of health beyond public health' (2025) and is a Researcher Co-Investigator on the 'Health Hub: Systems Approaches to Commercial Determinants of Health and Equity' project through 2028. She actively participates in peer review for major public health journals including BMJ Global Health, Journal of Health Communication, and Public Health Nutrition.

Her work connects with the Local Health and Global Profits research consortium and contributes to the University of Bath's Centre for 21st Century Public Health, focusing on systems approaches to address industry influence on public health policy development globally.