Food Environment, Diet, and Health
A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Health Behavior, Chronic Disease and Health Promotion".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2017) | Viewed by 193653
Special Issue Editors
Interests: neighborhoods; activity spaces; built environment; social environment; nutrition; physical activity; ecological momentary assessment; health disparities and social determinants of health
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
We are organizing a Special Issue on the impact of the food environment on diet and health in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH). This peer-reviewed, scientific journal publishes research articles and communications in the interdisciplinary area of environmental health sciences and public health. For detailed information on the journal, we refer you to https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph.
Over the past 15 years, considerable research has examined inequities in the food environment and associations between the food environment and diet or health. The food environment includes the accessibility of retail food stores, restaurants, and other food sources (e.g., farmers’ markets, mobile food vendors, food pantries, non-traditional food stores) and the availability, quality, prices (including taxes and subsidies), and marketing of food products. Yet important gaps in the evidence remain and new opportunities exist to improve our understanding of how the food environment impacts health. Longitudinal and experimental/quasi-experimental research designs including rigorous evaluation of planned and natural experiments (e.g., food source openings/closings, changes in product mix, introduction of healthy food promotions) would improve causal inference. More research is needed that links individual diet and health outcomes with direct measures of food availability, quality, prices, and marketing. Technological advances such as mobile global positioning system receivers and geographic momentary assessment may improve measurement of food environment exposures and thus understanding of the role of broader activity-space and non-residential food environments. Studies on how people use the food environment and make food shopping and purchasing decisions could help interpret research findings to date and inform intervention approaches. Home and even workplace address information in behavioral and weight loss interventions can open up emerging avenues of research on whether the food environment modifies intervention effectiveness. Additionally, studies that provide evidence on potential unintended consequences that may arise from policies that aim to improve healthy food access are critically important for policymakers. Across all studies more information is needed on which aspects of the food environment impact subpopulations at highest risk for poor diet and adverse health outcomes and contribute to racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, and urban–rural health disparities. These are just some of the research areas where more well-designed research is needed to inform policy and interventions in order to improve population health and reduce health inequities.
This Special Issue will feature new research that advances our understanding of the food environment, diet, and health and moves the field forward. It is open to original research, review articles, short reports, brief commentaries, methodological papers, and meta-analyses related to the food environment. The listed keywords suggest a few of the many possible subject areas.
Professor Dr. Shannon N. Zenk
Professor Dr. Lisa M. Powell
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- Food environment
- Diet
- Nutrition
- Body weight
- Obesity
- Overweight
- Food availability
- Food selection
- Food accessibility
- Food prices
- Food taxes
- Food subsidies
- Food marketing
- Food quality
- Food store
- Restaurant
- Fast food
- Supermarket
- Grocery store
- Convenience store
- Neighborhood
- Activity space
- Public health
- Health geography
- Environmental exposure
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