Journal
ANNUAL REVIEW OF PUBLIC HEALTH, VOL 42, 2021
Volume 42, Issue -, Pages 345-362Publisher
ANNUAL REVIEWS
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-publhealth-100919-114442
Keywords
food environments; benchmarking; nutrition; accountability
Categories
Funding
- Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship from the National Heart Foundation of Australia [102035]
- NHMRC Centres for Research Excellence entitled Reducing Salt IntakeUsing Food Policy Interventions (Australia) [APP1117300]
- NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Food Retail Environments for Health (RE-FRESH) (Australia) [APP1152968]
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INFORMAS is an international network that monitors and benchmarks food environments and related policies. It has developed standardized methods for assessing food environment characteristics, contributing to capacity building, advocacy, stakeholder engagement, and policy evaluation. Future efforts to benchmark food environments should include measurements related to environmental sustainability.
Diet-related noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and obesity are the leading contributors to poor health worldwide. Efforts to improve population diets need to focus on creating healthy food environments. INFORMAS, established in 2012, is an international network that monitors and benchmarks food environments and related policies. By 2020, INFORMAS was active in 58 countries; national government policies were the most frequent aspect benchmarked. INFORMAS has resulted in the development and widespread application of standardized methods for assessing the characteristics of food environments. The activities of INFORMAS have contributed substantially to capacity building, advocacy, stakeholder engagement, and policy evaluation in relation to creating healthy food environments. Future efforts to benchmark food environments need to incorporate measurements related to environmental sustainability. For sustained impact, INFORMAS activities will need to be embedded within other existing monitoring initiatives. The most value will come from repeated assessments that help drive increased accountability for improving food environments.
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