Environment

Systems of food production, trade and consumption are increasingly vulnerable to interconnected political, economic and ecological shocks and stresses associated with climate and environmental changes, shifts in farming practices, uneven power dynamics and consumer lifestyle changes. IKnowFood will take an interdisciplinary multi-stakeholder approach to developing a unifying understanding of ‘food system resilience’ using tools and methods to integrate the knowledge and perspectives of hitherto disparate food system actors.

This BBSRC funded project involves multiple departments at York; within Health Sciences, the leads are Kate Pickett and Maddy Power who are working on theme 3 - 'Consumer'. In this theme the research focuses on reslilience to consumerism and over-consumption. Emerging theory suggests that consumerism and associated poor food-related behaviour is substantially intensified by greater social and economic inequality. The serious public health and environmental risks of apparently unstoppable over-consumption, and its concomitant waste, which brings with it little evidence of improvement in wellbeing, will be examined in the context of global food security.

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Link to iknowfood website

This project will consist of two systematic reviews of qualitative research on behaviours with health and environmental impacts. The reviews will be focused respectively on travel behaviour and diet-related behaviour. Qualitative studies of individual’s perceptions and experiences of these behaviours will be included, paying particular attention to the influence of social inequalities on the facilitators of and barriers to healthy and pro-environmental behaviours.

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An NIHR Public  Health Policy Research Unit funded project to understand people's perceptions of the health risks of climate change and their priorities for action.

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