Transforming Urban Food Systems for Planetary and Population Health (The Mandala Consortium)

在这个提案中，我们提出了五年的研究愿景，这将有助于为食品系统带来重大变化。这些变化旨在使食品更健康、更实惠、对环境的危害更小，但仍能被企业接受。这项工作将涉及许多不同类型的研究人员，他们通常不会在一起工作，也包括商业公司、市议会和民间社会组织。我们的研究结果将影响地方和国家政府、食品公司和其他在为社区提供健康、负担得起和可持续食品方面发挥重要作用的组织。研究将集中在伯明翰，一个人口多样化的英国大城市。这项工作将分为六个工作包，这些工作包将密切相关。研究小组将在每个工作包上共同工作，并定期分享他们的发现。这将有助于确保我们的工作在伯明翰实现有效的食品系统变革，并可以被其他地方尝试进行类似的变革。在第一个工作包中，我们将与社区以及地方议会和食品企业的人员合作，绘制当前食品系统的地图。这将展示不同类型的企业和其他组织参与其中，他们做什么，以及他们如何合作，向社区提供食物。我们将探讨金钱和食物如何在这个系统中流动。我们将与社区成员和相关组织的人员举行会议，以确保我们正确了解整个食品系统。我们将使用我们的“系统图”来找出我们可以用来衡量食品系统如何运作的信息。在可能的情况下，我们使用已经收集的数据，我们可以创造性地和有效地使用这些数据。我们将在必要时使用新方法收集新数据。我们将设法将不同类型的数据整合在一起，以便能够用来衡量粮食系统随时间的变化以及对新政策或计划的响应。我们将分析这些信息，看看它能告诉我们食物系统是如何运作的。一旦我们有了食物系统的地图，了解了它是如何运作的，我们将帮助伯明翰市议会制定改变食物系统的计划。改革的目的是使食品更健康、更实惠、更环保，同时不会对企业产生负面影响。这些计划将包括切实可行、负担得起、可能实现我们的目标并与其他国家和地方政策相协调的行动。可能的行动可能包括改变商业利率以鼓励销售更健康的食品，或者开发在线系统帮助当地企业找到并使用更多当地种植的食物。研究的下一阶段将是实施这些计划，并探索哪些行动最能实现我们的目标——无论是单独行动还是联合行动。由于工作方案只持续五年，我们将无法研究行动的长期影响。相反，我们将建立一个计算机模型来预测在现实生活中测试的行为如何可能影响未来的健康、环境、经济和食品业务。该模型还将为其他地方的地方议会和食品企业提供一个有用的工具，以探索不同的行动如何对健康、环境、经济和商业产生不同的影响。研究结果将有助于制定改变其他城市和地区粮食系统的计划。在整个五年中，我们将定期与其他科学家和食品企业、理事会和社区的人们进行交谈。我们将分享我们的想法和发现，并就我们的工作如何发展征求他们的意见。我们将开发一些有吸引力的方式来分享这些信息，包括电影和博客、报纸文章和科学论文。

In this proposal we set out our vision for five years of research that will help bring about important changes in the food system. The changes aim to make food healthier, more affordable, less harmful to the environment, but still acceptable to businesses. The work will involve many different types of researcher, who do not usually work together, as well as commercial companies, a city council, and civil society organisations. Our findings will influence local and national governments, food companies and other organisations that play important roles in bringing healthy, affordable and sustainable food to communities.The research will focus on Birmingham, a large English city with a diverse population. The work will be divided into six work packages that will be closely connected. The research team will work together on each of the work packages and share their findings regularly. This will help to ensure that our work achieves effective food system change in Birmingham and can be used by other places trying to make similar changes.In the first work package, we will work with communities and people from the local council and food businesses to create a map of the current food system. This will show the different types of businesses and other organisations involved, what they do and how they work together to deliver food to communities. We will explore how money and food flows through the system. We will have meetings with community members and people from the relevant organisations to ensure we properly understand the whole of the food system.We will use our 'system map' to work out what information we can use to measure how the food system works. Where possible, we use data that is already collected that we can use creatively and efficiently. We will collect new data when necessary using new methods. We will look for ways to bring different types of data together so that it can be used to measure changes in the food system over time and in response to new policies or programmes. We will analyse the information to see what it tells us about how the food systems works.Once we have a map of the food system, and an understanding of how it works, we will help Birmingham City Council develop plans to change the food system. The aim of changes will be to make food more healthy, more affordable and better for the environment without negatively affecting businesses. The plans will include actions that are practical, affordable, likely to achieve our aims and compatible with other national and local policies. Possible actions might include changing business rates to encourage sale of healthier foods, or developing online systems to help local businesses find and use more locally grown food.The next stage of the research will be to implement the plans and explore which of the actions work best to achieve our aims - both singly and in combination. Because the programme of work will only run for five years, we will not be able to study long term impacts of actions. Instead we will build a computer model to predict how the actions that are tested in real life are likely to affect health, the environment, the economy and food business in the future. The model will also provide a useful tool for local councils and food businesses in other places to explore how different actions might impact differently on health, the environment, the economy and businesses. The results will help make plans for changing the food system in other cities and regions.Throughout the five years, we will talk regularly to other scientists and people in food businesses, the council and the community. We will share our thinking and findings and seek their views on how our work is evolving. We will develop a number of attractive ways to share this information, including films and blogs, newspaper articles and scientific papers.