Food environment research has been gaining prominence across the world in recent years as researchers and practitioners seek to address pressing public health nutrition challenges globally. Historically, food environment research has its roots in high-income country settings, grounded in the public health and human geography literature seeking to respond to the high prevalence of overweight, obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases (DR-NCDs) in contexts such as the US and the UK. Much of the early literature was grounded in the notion of food deserts and the limited availability, accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods, particularly in deprived neighbourhoods. Since the mid-2010s, food environment research has increasingly gained momentum in low- and middle-income countries. In these settings, transitioning dietary and lifestyle patterns are fuelling a double burden of malnutrition, characterised by persistent undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies coupled with the rapidly increasing prevalence of overweight, obesity, and DR-NCDs.

In 2016, the Agriculture, Nutrition and Health Academy Food Environment Working Group (ANH-FEWG) was established by NRI’s Dr Christopher Turner as a work stream of the Innovative Methods and Metrics for Agriculture and Nutrition Actions (IMMANA) initiative. The working group brought together experts to review and synthesise food environment concepts, methods, metrics, and research gaps. This work aimed to provide a platform of consensus to guide and accelerate food environment research in low-and-middle income countries (LMICs). A key output from the working group was a globally applicable conceptual framework for food environment research (Figure 1). The conceptual framework has since been well received, informing several systematic literature reviews, research programmes, and projects.

In 2023, the IMMANA team conducted an impact case study of the ANH-FEWG and its outputs, documenting diverse engagement across research, teaching, policy and practice. Examples of engagement include the application of the framework by UN Nutrition to investigate the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on consumers. The framework was also used by the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) Faculty Research Programme to inform a funding call under the Policy Analysis for Sustainable and Healthy Foods in African Retail Markets (PASHFARM) project. AERC subsequently funded 20 food environment research projects in 15 African countries under PASHFARM. The framework also features in a teaching textbook – Global Food Systems, Diets and Nutrition: Linking Science, Economics and Policy by Columbia University’s Professor Jessica Fanzo.

Since the publication of the original framework, conceptual thinking around food environments has continued to evolve as researchers apply and test these concepts across diverse settings and with specific populations. One example is the UNICEF and GAIN ‘Innocenti’ framework on food systems for children and adolescents (2018). Most recently, the Swedish Public Health Agency applied the framework to a review of the food environment literature in Sweden, as they sought to provide evidence-based recommendations to the Swedish Government (Figure 2). Recognising the need to capture feedback from the research community on the framework, Dr Turner recently held a series of consultations with researchers and practitioners.

These included an in-person event at the ANH-Academy Research Conference in Malawi, online consultations at the Africa Food Environment Research Network (Africa FERN) and a research seminar series by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Building on the constructive feedback from these consultations, Dr Turner will reconvene the ANH-FEWG in 2024. The aim is to revisit and update the conceptual framework with an expanded global membership of leading food environment researchers – putting NRI at the forefront of this rapidly evolving field within the wider food systems research agenda.