Neal Mohan

Boyd A Swinburn, Boyd A Swinburn, G. Sacks, S. Vandevijvere, S. Kumanyika, T. Lobstein, B. Neal, S. Barquera, S. Friel, C. Hawkes, Bridget Kelly, M. L’Abbé, Amanda Lee, J. Ma, J. Macmullan, Sailesh Mohan, C. Monteiro, M. Rayner, D. Sanders, Wendy Snowdon, Wendy Snowdon, C. Walker

Non‐communicable diseases (NCDs) dominate disease burdens globally and poor nutrition increasingly contributes to this global burden. Comprehensive monitoring of food environments, and evaluation of the impact of public and private sector policies on food environments is needed to strengthen accountability systems to reduce NCDs. The International Network for Food and Obesity/NCDs Research, Monitoring and Action Support (INFORMAS) is a global network of public‐interest organizations and researchers that aims to monitor, benchmark and support public and private sector actions to create healthy food environments and reduce obesity, NCDs and their related inequalities. The INFORMAS framework includes two ‘process’ modules, that monitor the policies and actions of the public and private sectors, seven ‘impact’ modules that monitor the key characteristics of food environments and three ‘outcome’ modules that monitor dietary quality, risk factors and NCD morbidity and mortality. Monitoring frameworks and indicators have been developed for 10 modules to provide consistency, but allowing for stepwise approaches (‘minimal’, ‘expanded’, ‘optimal’) to data collection and analysis. INFORMAS data will enable benchmarking of food environments between countries, and monitoring of progress over time within countries. Through monitoring and benchmarking, INFORMAS will strengthen the accountability systems needed to help reduce the burden of obesity, NCDs and their related inequalities.

Boyd A Swinburn, Boyd A Swinburn, S. Vandevijvere, V. Kraak, G. Sacks, Wendy Snowdon, Wendy Snowdon, C. Hawkes, S. Barquera, S. Friel, Bridget Kelly, S. Kumanyika, M. L’Abbé, Andy Lee, T. Lobstein, J. Ma, J. Macmullan, Sailesh Mohan, C. Monteiro, B. Neal, M. Rayner, D. Sanders, Celeste Walker

Government action is essential to increase the healthiness of food environments and reduce obesity, diet‐related non‐communicable diseases (NCDs), and their related inequalities. This paper proposes a monitoring framework to assess government policies and actions for creating healthy food environments. Recommendations from relevant authoritative organizations and expert advisory groups for reducing obesity and NCDs were examined, and pertinent components were incorporated into a comprehensive framework for monitoring government policies and actions. A Government Healthy Food Environment Policy Index (Food‐EPI) was developed, which comprises a ‘policy’ component with seven domains on specific aspects of food environments, and an ‘infrastructure support’ component with seven domains to strengthen systems to prevent obesity and NCDs. These were revised through a week‐long consultation process with international experts. Examples of good practice statements are proposed within each domain, and these will evolve into benchmarks established by governments at the forefront of creating and implementing food policies for good health. A rating process is proposed to assess a government's level of policy implementation towards good practice. The Food‐EPI will be pre‐tested and piloted in countries of varying size and income levels. The benchmarking of government policy implementation has the potential to catalyse greater action to reduce obesity and NCDs.

S. Neal, K. Bennett, H. Jones, A. Cochrane, G. Mohan

Situating itself in encounter and public space debates and borrowing from nonrepresentational theory approaches, this paper uses data from the authors’ 2-year Economic and Social Research Council research project to consider how local urban parks can work as sites of routine encounter, mixity, and place belonging. The paper explores how parks as green public spaces are not only important as sites of inclusive openness but that the materiality of parks is a key dynamic in affective encounter processes. Parks can work as animators of social interactions, participatory practices, and place affinities across ethnic and cultural difference. The paper concludes that the concept of convivial encounter can be extended to incorporate the concept of elective practices – choosing to be in shared public space can generate connective sensibilities that are not necessarily contingent on exchange. In using parks as a lens to examine localities and diversity, the paper critically reflects on research practices for understanding and describing heterogeneous formations of multiculture and argues that the project’s research design and the fieldwork methods present an attempt to carefully and appropriately respond to research with complexly different places and populations.

Amanda Lee, C. N. Mhurchu, G. Sacks, Boyd A Swinburn, Boyd A Swinburn, Wendy Snowdon, Wendy Snowdon, S. Vandevijvere, C. Hawkes, M. L’Abbé, M. Rayner, D. Sanders, S. Barquera, S. Friel, Bridget Kelly, S. Kumanyika, T. Lobstein, J. Ma, J. Macmullan, Sailesh Mohan, C. Monteiro, B. Neal, C. Walker

Food prices and food affordability are important determinants of food choices, obesity and non‐communicable diseases. As governments around the world consider policies to promote the consumption of healthier foods, data on the relative price and affordability of foods, with a particular focus on the difference between ‘less healthy’ and ‘healthy’ foods and diets, are urgently needed. This paper briefly reviews past and current approaches to monitoring food prices, and identifies key issues affecting the development of practical tools and methods for food price data collection, analysis and reporting. A step‐wise monitoring framework, including measurement indicators, is proposed. ‘Minimal’ data collection will assess the differential price of ‘healthy’ and ‘less healthy’ foods; ‘expanded’ monitoring will assess the differential price of ‘healthy’ and ‘less healthy’ diets; and the ‘optimal’ approach will also monitor food affordability, by taking into account household income. The monitoring of the price and affordability of ‘healthy’ and ‘less healthy’ foods and diets globally will provide robust data and benchmarks to inform economic and fiscal policy responses. Given the range of methodological, cultural and logistical challenges in this area, it is imperative that all aspects of the proposed monitoring framework are tested rigorously before implementation.

S. Neal, K. Bennett, A. Cochrane, G. Mohan

Since 2001, as the social and spatial compositions of multiculture and migration have become more complicated and diverse, geography has moved back to the centre of policy, political, and academic arguments about cultural difference and ethnic diversity in England. This spatial turn is most obvious in preoccupations with notions of increasing ethnic segregation, but it is also apparent in discussions of the possibility of everyday multicultural exchanges in relationally understood places. Responding to the work of others on these questions and in these places, and informed by data from research exploring Ghanaian and Somali migrant settlement in Milton Keynes, we review some of the quantitative and qualitative evidence being drawn on in academic, policy, and political debates about contemporary multiculture. We problematise the dominance of the concept of segregation in these debates and examine the value of the concept of conviviality for understanding the ways in which multiculture is lived.