Policy options for healthier retail food environments in city-regions

Abstract

Public policy is central to health promotion: it determines the distribution of resources in a society and establishes the structural context for the actions of both corporations and consumers. With this in mind, the purpose of this paper is to begin a discussion on promising policy options for a health-promoting retail food environment. Drawing on specific municipal examples, we examine four groups of policy options for healthier retail food environments in cityregions: planning for health; transforming consumer environments; economic and fiscal instruments; and a culture of transparency and participation. We introduce examples of policy options that are receiving increasing attention in the public health and urban planning literature and that function at the municipal level. We also highlight how public health professionals have an important role to play in policy that shapes retail food environments, especially in making explicit the linkages between health and other policy goals. In doing so, this commentary aims to motivate public health practitioners in a variety of community contexts to consider the policy supports they need to advance their exploration, development, testing and evaluation of interventions for healthier retail food environments.KEY WORDS: Policy; social planning; environment and public health; food supply La traduction du résumé se trouve à la fin de l'article.

Retail food environments research in Canada: A scoping review

“…20,21 Therefore, while these communities may well be considered food deserts by local residents, no empirical evidence has yet quantified the extent of food deserts in northern Canada or the impacts on nutritional health. 8,19 As Canadian public health decision-makers and practitioners 8,[22][23][24][25] and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) 26 are increasingly recognizing their role in creating and supporting healthy food environments, there is an urgent need to synthesize Canadaspecific food environments literature to support evidence-based decision-making. Therefore, the objective of this scoping review is to provide an overview of peer-reviewed Canadian retail food environments research and commentary by describing emerging research topics and findings, identifying knowledge gaps and suggesting future directions for research and practice.…”

“Highly processed, highly packaged, very unhealthy. But they are low risk”: exploring intersections between community food security and food safety

“…Although considering food safety when measuring or acting to improve food environments has been previously suggested, 17,25 this study demonstrates how collaboration with food safety practitioners, or the lack thereof, can impact population health efforts aimed at improving community nutrition environments. In this study, participants provided many examples of how the lack of engagement across food-related mandates made it more difficult for them to work toward safe and healthy diets within given communities.…”

“…healthy corner store interventions) are recognized elements shaping food environments, [13][14][15][16] and although formal food safety activities (e.g. licensing, inspection) have recently been noted as policy tools with which to improve food environments, 17 studies that explicitly explore food safety and foodborne disease risk as part of healthy food environments in Canada are lacking. Given this lack, and given the potential for interrelationships between foodborne disease, food insecurity, food safety, and community food security (hereafter, "food security") activities, the objective of this study was to explore ways in which food security efforts (and the food insecurity issues they aim to address) and food safety practices (and the foodborne diseases they aim to address) may intersect, within the province of British Columbia, Canada, from the perspective of the individual public health practitioner.…”

« Très transformés, très emballés et très mauvais pour la santé... mais à faible risque » : exploration des liens entre sécurité des aliments et salubrité des aliments dans les collectivités

“…Même si tenir compte de la salubrité ali mentaire au moment d'évaluer ou d'agir afin d'améliorer un environnement alimen taire a déjà été suggéré 17,25 , notre étude montre dans quelle mesure la collaboration avec des praticiens en salubrité des ali ments (ou son absence ) peut avoir une incidence sur les efforts déployés en santé de la population en vue d'améliorer l'environnement nutritionnel de la collec tivité. Dans cette étude, les participants ont fourni de nombreux exemples de la manière dont le manque d'engagement entre les secteurs liés à l'alimentation a compliqué leur mandat de fournir des ali ments sains et sûrs aux collectivités con cernées.…”