Socio-environmental determinants of grocery sales and community nutrition in transition in Nunavut, Canada

项目总结/文摘

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT In the Canadian Arctic territory of Nunavut, the Inuit majority consumes a mixed diet composed of traditional, harvested ("country") food and store-bought foods. Country food is nutrient-rich and remains a substantial dietary component; store-bought food is typically more energy dense and highly processed while also growing in its dietary dominance over country food. In recent years, overweight, obesity, and associated chronic conditions have been on the rise in the territory. This shift is fueled by built (advent and growth of food retailers) and natural (harvesting hazard-related) environmental dynamics. As harvesting trail safety is jeopardized by climate change and environmental hazards, country food procurement can become difficult. In a prior qualitative study, the applicant discovered that, in these leaner times of decreased country food harvest, community members seek sustenance elsewhere—very often at the grocery stores. The body of evidence associating such retail food environments to diet-related health outcomes is expanding. Investigating grocery sales allows for rigorous, cost-effective, and time-efficient monitoring of store-bought contributions to population diet, nutrition, and health. Using grocery retailer-donated data from 21 stores across Nunavut, this research will, for the first time in the circumpolar north, explore store-bought components of the local diet. The aims are to: (1) examine nutritional and dietary pattern trends across Inuit-defined seasons and community population size quintiles (a proxy for degree of traditional subsistence activity) to better understand the nutrition transition, and (2) model the unsafety of nearby harvesting trails as a predictor of more total grocery and/or animal protein purchases. This project is grounded in long-standing partnerships with community and territorial government entities in the health, food security, nutrition, and public policy arenas in Nunavut, and represents a multisectoral academic, public, and private (the North West Company food retailer) collaboration in pursuit of shared analytic objectives. Through the detailed training plan structured around the applicant’s research aims and career goals, a multidisciplinary sponsorship team will support her development as an independent academic researcher. The training goals include (1) developing and integrating advanced methodological techniques in social and environmental epidemiology, (2) enhancing skills in the design, conduct, and communication of community health studies with policy impacts, and (3) gaining further experience with sustainable and effective approaches to community-partnered research. Altogether, the training and research plans will prepare the applicant for a career as a leading socio-environmental and Arctic epidemiological researcher, instructor, and mentor. By the successful conclusion of this F31, she will have built an unrivaled 7-year database combining environmental, social, and nutritional data for Nunavut. This will pave the way for continued, impactful work as a postdoctoral researcher pioneering studies at the interface of built and natural environmental drivers of Arctic community nutrition and health in transition.