NIH/Fogarty International Center Webinar Series:

Lessons Learned from Global Food and Nutrition Insecurity

Webinar #2: “Leveraging food environments for food and nutrition security”

About the NIH Webinar Series

Commissioned by the NIH, the Food Insecurity Webinar Series highlights innovative research projects on nutrition, food insecurity, and health outcomes in multiple settings. The four-part series covers a range of topics including food environments, research designs, and innovation. Among others, the Series will share lessons, identify gaps, and opportunities for the NIH, in partnership with other food systems actors to use to promote food security.

About food security

Food and nutrition security, as a concept means  “all people at all times have physical, economic, and social access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”[1]. However, ensuring food security, and nourishing the world’s population in ways that support human and planetary health has been a challenge globally.

About food environments

Food environments may be defined as the space (physical/metaphoric) within the food systems in which people make decisions about food – what to eat, where to buy it (source), when and with whom to eat it. As most countries are currently battling with multiple burdens of malnutrition, much of which is linked to unhealthy diets, the food environments have been touted as a critical place in the food systems to implement interventions to achieve food security, human and planetary health. 

Purpose of the webinar:

Second in the Series, this webinar aims to discuss the nexus between food environments (home, neighborhood, and community food environments) and food (in)security. Participants will be provided with examples of effective food environments and food systems interventions across multiple regions that address food security equitably and sustainably.

Webinar Delivery 

Overview: The conceptual and typological delineations of food environments, and how food environments could be leveraged to assure food security.  Outline some examples of innovative, local, regional, and global research on food environments for food security.

To be moderated by Rafael Perez- Escamilla (Yale University), four speakers will share evidence, perspectives, experiences, success stories, challenges on how food environment is been leveraged to achieve food security in different contexts – Africa, Americas, Europe, and the Caribbean.

• Uriyoan Colon-Ramos, George Washington University (examples from the Americas)
• Charlotte Gallagher-Squires, University of London (examples from Europe)
• Amos Laar, University of Ghana (examples from Africa)
• Josefa Martinez, Yale University (examples from LAC)

To register or learn more about the webinar series, please use this link.

https://www.fic.nih.gov/News/Events/Pages/global-food-insecurity-series.aspx