Work Package three will focus on uncovering policy gaps and priority actions needed to improve food environments and to reduce inequalities in selected European cities.

Aims

1. To identify core evidence on how local level food environment policies implemented impact consumers from disadvantaged groups and their ability to obtain food appropriate for a healthy and balanced diet 
2. To identify the policy gaps and priorities actions needed to improve food environments and to reduce inequalities in selected European cities by adapting and validating the Food-EPI Framework for use at the local level in these cities 
3. To gain an overview of local level food environment policies impact citizens from disadvantaged groups and their ability to obtain food appropriate for a healthy and balanced diet 
4. To assess the implementation of public policies with direct/ indirect potential influence on food environments at National level in Turkey and at city level in the selected European countries and to recommend local governmental actions to improve food environments and reduce socioeconomic inequalities in diet. 

Why are we doing this research

Attempts at shifting population diets towards healthier food patterns have long prioritised individual consumer food choices over the contexts in which consumption takes place. While some improvements have been reported in the past decades, such attempts have proven insufficiently capable of improving population level diets and lowering socioeconomic inequalities in diets. Effective public sector policies and actions are essential to increase the healthiness of food environments, monitoring the degree of implementation of these policies and actions and mapping the interaction between these domains is an important part of ensuring progress towards better nutritional health, healthier, and equitable food environments and thus reducing the burden of non-communicable disease.

The Healthy Food Environment Policy Index (Food-EPI) is an established tool and process to benchmark government (national and regional) policies as well as infrastructure support systems to create healthy food environments. Using Food-EPI we will focus on upstream determinants of food-related behaviour, providing an understanding of how food policy, social policy and commercial interests could impact socioeconomic inequalities in diet and health, and thus identifying leverage points for change.  

What is involved

1. Conducting a systematic review to identify the impact of local level food environment policies on food-related inequalities observed in disadvantaged groups, in the aspect of shaping their eating habits and consumer behaviour. 
2. Mapping local food policies and collecting relevant policy documents and evidence of implementation in each participating country. The collected evidence will then be validated by government officials 
3. Identifying implementation gaps and priority action areas for the local food environment.  This involved engaging key stakeholders through workshops to identify gaps and priorities. An interagency and wider community engagement workshop will then be conducted to extend and refine the outputs from the stakeholder engagement. Workshops with local community groups and the wider public will also be organised. Results and feedback from these activities will be used to prioritise proposed actions.  
4. Conducting policy mapping at the national level in Turkey to assess the implementation of food environment policies and identify gaps that contribute to food related inequalities. 

Who is involved

University College Cork (UCC), Ireland, will lead the research for Work Package three.

The other partners taking part in Work Package 3 are:

University of Ghent (UG),Belgium,  Medical University of Silesia (SUM),Poland, Izmir Katip Celebi Iniversity (IKCU), Türkiye, and Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands. (WUR). 

Outputs for Work Package 3

Protocols:

• Piotr Romaniuk, Krzysztof Kaczmarek, Klaudia Alcer, Natalia Zadworna-Strzeszyna, Sanne Djojosoeparto, Janas Harrington, Nieke Sonneveld, Evita van Duin, Gülşah Kaner, Gamze Yurtdaş Depboylu, Jessie Van Kerckhove. "Impact of local level food environment policies on diet quality in people from socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. A systematic review of the existing evidence" NIHR (National Institute for Health and Care Research) 2024  https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=589626