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Despite the increasing evidence on the effects of the economic crisis and austerity policies on the health of the population, we lack knowledge of how the young population is being affected. High unemployment rates, labour instability, high housing costs and cuts in public policies have placed the young in a vulnerable situation. We explore changes (2006–2017) in the both physical and mental health of young people in Spain using a selection of health indicators. By doing so we draw the reader’s attention to three elements with a close relationship to neoliberalism: the prominence of social determinants of health, the importance of inequalities and the accumulation of multiple sources of disadvantage in certain groups and individuals which ultimately condition the course of their lives; and the use of medicalization as a common and legitimised response to poor mental health.

In keeping with the long-standing focus on cities and urbanism in sociology, the researchers in this volume contribute to our knowledge of children, youth, and the city. These scholars take up ideas connected to agency, belonging, citizenship, identity, participation, power, and relationality and explore both historical and contemporary ways children and youth co-construct, contribute to, are constructed by, navigate, negotiate, and resist their urban social worlds and urban relationships.

Purpose – This chapter explores the pharmaceutical industry's strategic utilization of empowerment discourse in two realms: direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) and clinical drug development.

Methodology – It draws upon two research projects that examine the role of the pharmaceutical industry in the political economy of healthcare in the United States: Ronald's policy analysis and participant observation of DTCA policy hearings and Fisher's participant observation and interviewing of the clinical trials industry.

Findings – Empowerment rhetoric is mobilized by the pharmaceutical industry to create specific expectations about patient-consumer behavior, particularly the responsibilities associated with the consumption of drugs.

Research implications – The social and economic implications of DTCA and drug trials must be understood within their broader historical and contemporary contexts of health advocacy, consumerism, and medical neoliberalism.

Practical implications – The chapter offers alternative constructions of healthcare subjects and pharmaceutical practices that can mitigate the power of the pharmaceutical industry and bring about better pharmaceutical governance.

Originality/value of chapter – By analyzing findings from two empirical projects, this chapter is able to shed light on trends in the pharmaceutical industry's discourse about empowerment and consumption from the clinical testing to marketing of new drugs.