A concise summary detailing what this focus area is, why it matters, and who it is designed to help.
Food Systems & Sustainability
Support healthier, more sustainable diets by linking nutrition goals with food systems evidence—tracking tradeoffs, equity, and measurable outcomes.
Overview
Improving diets at scale increasingly requires systems thinking—considering affordability, access, supply chains, and environmental constraints alongside health goals. We support organizations that need decision-ready evidence to design strategies that improve nutrition while accounting for sustainability and equity tradeoffs. Our work combines data synthesis, modeling, and transparent reporting—helping stakeholders compare options, set measurable targets, and track progress over time.
Solutions Used
A list of methods and capabilities utilized to execute the work and achieve the objectives within this focus area.
- Policy Modeling & Cost-Effectiveness — To compare scenarios and quantify expected health, economic, and (where data allow) sustainability impacts.
- Dietary Surveillance & Measurement — To measure diet patterns, track shifts over time, and assess subgroup differences linked to food-system changes.
- Data Science & Statistics — To analyze complex, multi-source datasets and deliver reproducible evidence on trends and tradeoffs.
- Evidence Synthesis & Guidelines — To summarize the evidence base on sustainable dietary patterns and translate it into decision-ready conclusions.
- Communication Science & Strategy— To support stakeholder engagement and messaging for feasible adoption and implementation, when relevant.
- Capacity Building & Training — To strengthen institutional capability for ongoing measurement, reporting, and evidence use, when relevant.
Key Measures
The specific clinical, economic, and programmatic indicators we track to quantify success and validate impact.
Depending on the question and setting, key measures may include:
- Sustainable Dietary Patterns: shifts in key food groups and diet quality indicators relevant to both health and sustainability goals.
- Equity & Affordability: affordability constraints, subgroup impacts, and access indicators tied to proposed changes.
- Modeled Impacts: projected health outcomes, budget impacts, and tradeoffs across scenarios (with uncertainty ranges).
- Implementation Feasibility: operational barriers/enablers, stakeholder readiness, and delivery constraints.
- Accountability Indicators: targets, reporting cadence, and transparent documentation of assumptions and methods
- Progress: monitoring of changes in diets, disparities, and relevant system indicators over time as data allow.
Related Focus Areas
Complementary health domains, populations, and settings that frequently intersect with this area of expertise.
