Although recent immigrants to Canada are healthier than Canadian born (i.e., the Healthy Immigrant Effect), they experience a deterioration in their health status which is partly due to transitions in dietary habits. Since pathways to these transitions are under-documented, this scoping review aims to identify knowledge gaps and research priorities related to immigrant nutritional health. A total of 49 articles were retrieved and reviewed using electronic databases and a stakeholder consultation was undertaken to consolidate findings. Overall, research tends to confirm the Healthy Immigrant Effect and suggests that significant knowledge gaps in nutritional health persist, thereby creating a barrier to the advancement of health promotion and the achievement of maximum health equity. Five research priorities were identified including (1) risks and benefits associated with traditional/ethnic foods; (2) access and outreach to immigrants; (3) mechanisms and coping strategies for food security; (4) mechanisms of food choice in immigrant families; and (5) health promotion strategies that work for immigrant populations.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10903-013-9823-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Objective: To investigate the perceived effects of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic lockdown measures on food availability, accessibility, dietary practices,  and strategies used by participants to cope with these measures. Design: We conducted a cross-sectional multi-country online survey between May and July 2020. We used a study-specific questionnaire mainly based on the adaptation of questions to assess food security and coping strategies from the World Food Programme’s “Emergency Food Security Assessment” and “The Coping Strategy Index”. Setting: The questionnaire was hosted online using Google Forms and shared using social media platforms. Participants: A total of 1075 adult participants from 82 countries completed the questionnaire. Results: As a prelude to COVID-19 lockdowns, 62.7 % of the participants reported to have stockpiled food, mainly cereals (59.5% of the respondents) and legumes (48.8%). An increase in the prices of staples such as cereals and legumes, was widely reported. Price increases have been identified as an obstacle to food acquisition by 32.7% of participants. Participants reported having lesser variety (50.4%), quality (30.2%), and quantity (39.2 %) of foods, with disparities across regions. Vulnerable groups were reported to be facing some struggle to acquire adequate food, especially people with chronic diseases (20.2%), the elderly (17.3%), and children (14.5%). To cope with the situation, participants mostly relied on less preferred foods (49%), reduced portion sizes (30%), and/or reduced the number of meals (25.7%). Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted food accessibility and availability, altered dietary practices and worsened the food insecurity situation, particularly in the most fragile regions.

The study explores the dietary acculturation process among first-generation immigrant families from sub-Saharan Africa or the Caribbean living in Ottawa (Canada). In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 12 mothers. The interaction between accelerating factors and other mediating factors resulted in a spiral of dietary changes triggered by immigration. The spiral evolved at different paces from traditional to acculturated and toward healthy or unhealthy diets and was hard to stop or to change in its direction once it started. Findings call for enhancing immigrant mothers' food access, food literacy and nutrition-related parenting skills, and their children's school food environment.

A growing literature highlights complexity of policy implementation and governance in global health and argues that the processes and outcomes of policies could be improved by explicitly taking this complexity into account. Yet there is a paucity of studies exploring how this can be achieved in everyday practice. This study documents the strategies, tactics, and challenges of boundary‐spanning actors working in 4 Sub‐Saharan Africa countries who supported the implementation of multisectoral nutrition as part of the African Nutrition Security Partnership in Burkina Faso, Mali, Ethiopia, and Uganda. Three action researchers were posted to these countries during the final 2 years of the project to help the government and its partners implement multisectoral nutrition and document the lessons. Prospective data were collected through participant observation, end‐line semistructured interviews, and document analysis. All 4 countries made significant progress despite a wide range of challenges at the individual, organizational, and system levels. The boundary‐spanning actors and their collaborators deployed a wide range of strategies but faced significant challenges in playing these unconventional roles. The study concludes that, under the right conditions, intentional boundary spanning can be a feasible and acceptable practice within a multisectoral, complex adaptive system in low‐ and middle‐income countries.

Purpose Food insecurity (FI) is an important social determinant of health and is linked with higher health care costs. There is a high prevalence of FI among recent migrant households in Canada. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the prevalence of FI in Sub-Saharan African and Caribbean migrants in Ottawa, and to explore determinants of FI in that population. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional study was conducted among 190 mothers born in Sub-Saharan Africa or the Caribbean living in Ottawa and having a child between 6 and 12 years old. Health Canada’s Household Food Security Survey Module was used to evaluate participants’ food security in the past 12 months. χ2 tests and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to measure determinants of FI (n=182). Findings A very high rate of FI (45.1 percent) was found among participants. When numerous determinants of FI were included in a multivariate model, household FI was associated with Caribbean origin, low education attainment, lone motherhood, living in Canada for five years or less and reliance on social assistance. Originality/value These findings highlight the need for FI to be explicitly addressed in migrant integration strategies in order to improve their financial power to purchase sufficient, nutritious and culturally acceptable foods. Enhancing migrants’ access to affordable child care and well-paid jobs, improving social assistance programs and providing more affordable subsidized housing programs could be beneficial.