Registration soon open for our Virtual Symposium Global Food Systems in Local Contexts – Understanding Contemporary Food Systems Through Time, which will take place Tuesday 16th – Friday 19th February 2021 (afternoons UK time).
For any questions, please email foodsystemssymposium@exeter.ac.uk or Dr Olivia Barnett-Naghshineh o.barnett-naghshineh@exeter.ac.uk or Dr Conny Guell c.guell@exeter.ac.uk
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On 8th July 2020, we held a Round Table Discussion on coordinating nutrition-related research in the Caribbean for a harmonized response to post-COVID19 food systems
It was noted that COVID-19, whilst a global health emergency, only served to highlight the long-term nutrition and food insecurity problems in the Caribbean region. The continued need to build capacity for nutrition research in the region was highlighted. Within this context, key discussion points and identified needs included:
- To geographically map settings and populations of past and current nutrition research (as well as ongoing interventions that may not be evaluated as opportunities for natural experimental studies/evaluations)
- To harmonize nutrition-related data collection tools (e.g. food frequency, dietary diversity (and other measures of diet quality), food security) and data analysis methods and discuss potential for open access of tools
- To better share existing internal datasets, build up datasets (e.g. regional database on nutritional composition of available foods (produced locally/imported)) systematically review existing, publicly available data (e.g. FAO stats) – and map available data
- To better understand food systems / food sources and their link to nutrition and health outcomes; including assessment of sustainability of food systems, and differential access to nutritious food
- To better understand ‘demand side’, nutrition literacy; improve (coordinated) messaging and messaging platforms to publics and governments; and sustainability of research and/or interventions
- To share learning on undertaking research within COVID-19 limitations, understand dynamic context of COVID-19 food systems, food practices
Proposed next steps: To develop concrete plans in further discussions, we propose follow up Zoom meetings (or alternative formats) on:
- How to standardise nutrition evaluation tools.
- How to make an inventory and map existing but fragmented data sources across the region.
- How to develop a cross-sector communication platform for our research, tools etc.
- How to share COVID-19 related research challenges and opportunities.
