Nutrition and Communities

Within the research group "Nutrition and Communities", we look at the connections between nutrition and communities. This is a multi-disciplinary group bringing together Health Sciences and Human Geography. We want to focus on the role of food in communities, emphasizing diet-related and structural factors, and study how changes may contribute to disease prevention and social sustainability. Communities are complex social and spatial units where multiple factors such as social and economic access and constraints shape the day-to-day experience of food choice. Being able to maintain a healthy energy balance is key, and measuring the various factors relating to this balance is crucial to understand the associations between diet and public health. At the same time, social infrastructure such as access to food and resources play a key role in supporting the diverse needs of communities.

Our research develops tools to measure diet and the role of the neighbourhood therein. In turn, these tools are used for measuring dietary exposures or outcomes in community research projects as well as supporting inclusive and sustainable community planning and food landscapes. Current projects include support for healthy food choices in the supermarket (‘Matsafari’).