Bridging the Gap in Studies on the Food Environment: The State-of-the-Art in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs)

Dear Colleagues,

Food systems can impact the health of populations in different ways, and they have been identified as one of the drivers of the global syndemic of undernutrition, obesity, and climate change. One of the components of food systems is the food environment, defined as the physical, economic, political, and socio-cultural context through which individuals interact with the food system to make choices about food, including how to acquire, store, prepare, distribute, and consume food. Knowledge and understanding of food environments are fundamental to informing public policies and interventions to modify food environments and influence food choice and, consequently, reduce malnutrition in all its forms and nutrition-related disease burden. However, research on this theme is most often conducted in high-income countries; for this reason, food environments must be characterised in different places, such as LMICs (low-and middle-income countries). Papers addressing the research of food environment and health in LMICs are invited for this Special Issue, especially those that focus on specific realities and that address gaps identified in the food environment literature, such as the use of valid and reliable instruments to collect primary data; longitudinal, intervention, and qualitative studies; representative samples; adopting conceptual models to formulate questions; evaluation of informal markets; evaluation of different dimensions of food environment; interconnection between different food environments; interconnection between digital and physical environment; inclusion of the sustainability dimension; among others. 

Prof. Dr. Mariana Carvalho de Menezes
Dr. Larissa Loures Mendes
Dr. Ariene Silva do Carmo
Guest Editors

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