Prioritising public health in mission-oriented industrial strategy

The aim of this article is to identify the opportunities to prioritise public health in industrial strategy. The resurgence of industrial policy has prompted calls for a sector-specific, people-focused, place-based, and mission-oriented approach. Absent from the literature is its role in improving public health. We use the UK as a case study to explore policy opportunities and implementation considerations for a ‘healthy industrial strategy’. Through analysis of policy documents and qualitative interviews, we identify key ingredients: health-informed sector selection; cross-sector policy initiatives such as ‘health and work’; locally-led institutional join-up; and the embedding of health objectives within a missions framework.