Network of German, US and Canadian researchers to organize two food economic seminars (2010 and 2012) and a track session at the 8th World Congress on Health Economics (2011)

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The purpose of the “Network on the Economics of Food Choice and Health” is to provide a platform for young professionals and senior researchers from different disciplines such as economics, food sciences and animal hygiene and from different countries (Germany, the US and Canada) to work together in an interdisciplinary forum. The network’s focus lies on analysing dietary patterns and food safety issues from an economic as well as from a behavioural perspective in order to support healthy food choices of consumers. To benefit from the different research areas covered by the network members three public events are planned. Two seminars on ‘The Economics of Food, Food Choice and Health’ will be organized in 2010 and 2012, the first in Germany and the second in the US. In addition, the network will organise a track session at the 8th World Congress on Health Economics in 2011 in Canada.Malnutrition and unsafe foods are as much economic and behavioural issues as they are nutritional and health issues. Deficiencies and excess in a person’s intake of nutrients and other dietary elements needed for a healthy living on the one hand and toxins on the other hand are the result of individual but as well industrial choices and behaviour with individual, industrial and societal consequences. The aim of the seminars and the track session is to provide insights into the determinants of food choice, food availability as well as regulatory methods and their possible impact on health. At the seminars and at the track session studies from micro-, health- and behavioural economics, food marketing and food science will be brought together in order to explain interdependencies among risks resulting from unhealthy diets or unsafe food and to analyse opportunities to manage these risks.