Spatial Planning and Community Development for Healthier Diets

Course Details

Food environments provide opportunities to purchase food from various locations, including grocery stores and fast-food outlets. Greater access to food outlets has been associated with higher consumption of less-healthy food. Greater and more frequent consumption of fast food is associated with poorer health, resulting in societal costs.

The APA Trend Report recognized the rapid food-retail transformation underway before the COVID-19 pandemic. Interactions with food environments were reportedly changing, with digital-platform food purchasing becoming increasingly popular. The pandemic accelerated underlying food-system transformations, meaning the digitalization of food access is becoming an important public-health challenge for planners that coincides with the decline of Main Street. On the positive side, this transformation was accompanied by a shift toward localized food production associated with food-led commercial and housing-regeneration projects.

Case studies showcase novel research, practice evidence, and approaches that illuminate interplay among the digital-app food environment, communities, and community food-growing opportunities. Presenters explore opportunities to create healthier food environments by combining regulatory and development partnership approaches. Participants obtain knowledge needed to address public health and economic challenges, and promote a shift toward healthier food access.

Learning Outcomes

• Consider the rationale for and appraise complementary regulatory, commercial and urban development levers used by public bodies and real estate agencies to create healthier food environments across community settings.
• Articulate the balance of costs versus benefits to society, economies, and health services of interventions that promote access to healthier food environments to uplift the community health equity.
• Adopt appropriate planning and community development solutions, using partnerships that incorporate public health, real estate, and public-engagement techniques to address community food-access needs and inequalities.