Democratizing information: Communities and Scientists as Partners in Securing Healthier Food

Food policy councils (FPCs) are forming and organizing all over the country to help transform the food environments for their communities. To assess the involvement of subject matter experts and the utilization of existing research and data by FPCs as well as to identify their scientific needs, we surveyed over 100 council members in the United States and Canada. 

Roughly sixty percent of survey respondents indicated they have included technical experts for guidance on technical topics. A majority of these experts were researchers, scientists or academics. Food councils are creative in the various ways they engage researchers and scientists, for example, to find out about latest development in food research, help develop policy solutions, and to help fill in research or data gaps. Respondents also identified barriers they face in accessing scientific and public health information. These range from constraints on time, resources and funding to the history of broken-down communication and mistrust between community groups and researchers. They underscored the lack of internal capacity to collect scientific data, the time needed to analyze and discuss data and its implications, lack of availability of data, lack of access to scientific academic journals and databases, and nature of research such that the time for data compilation and synthesis is much longer than is needed for relevant, policy-applicable information.

The speaker will discuss best practices to create and promote ways for researchers and public health professionals to meaningfully and productively to collaborate with food policy councils to advance a healthier food environment.