THE CHALLENGE
Understanding how food environments shape diets and health is a necessary first step to improve community health and diet intake in the Galapagos.
KEY QUESTIONS
- What are the factors that shape food environments in the Galapagos and how can they be measured?
- What is the relationship between these food environments and residents’ food purchasing behavior? How do these relate to their diet and health?
People: Khristopher Nicholas, Margaret Bentley, and Amanda Thompson
This research project, led by doctoral student Khristopher Nicholas, explores food environments in the Galapagos islands, their determinants, and how they impact diets and health. For this work, the team is first devising a spatial algorithm to create food environment scores and surface maps in order to assess whether community food environment scores are associated with household food purchasing behavior. Then, they will determine whether food environment scores or food purchasing behavior impact dietary intake and health among Galápagos residents. Last, the project will use qualitative data to contextualize these findings within community members’ views of barriers to food security to construct potential intervention strategies.
This project is funded by the Triangle Center for Evolutionary Medicine (TriCEM).