Healthy home food environments of pregnant Black women are shaped by food outlet access and participation in nutrition assistance programs.

Objectives: Improving access to healthy food in Black communities is imperative to combat intergenerational health disparities. Pregnant Black women represent an especially vulnerable population to multiple (and overlapping) sources of socioeconomic and political disenfranchisement and thus for whom maternal nutrition is crucial. This study aimed to (1) define household food environment types, (2) determine whether the distribution of community food outlets is associated with these household food environment types, and (3) determine whether the community-household food environment relationship differs by maternal education or participation in nutrition assistance programs.

Examining the trade-offs of palm oil production and consumption from a sustainable diets perspective: lessons learned from Myanmar.

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the trade-offs related to the production and consumption of palm oil in Myanmar from a sustainable diets perspective.

Design: We used an enhanced value chain analysis approach that included semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders; market analyses to assess edible oils in markets and focus groups as well as surveys with consumers to ascertain their perceptions and practices related to edible oils.

Setting: Four settings in Myanmar (upper income urban; lower income urban; middle-income urban; lower income rural).

Climate anomalies and childhood growth in Peru.

Climate change has been linked to poor childhood growth and development through maternal stress, nutritional insults related to lean harvests, and exposure to infectious diseases. Vulnerable populations are often most susceptible to these stressors. This study tested whether susceptibility to linear growth faltering is higher among Peruvian children from indigenous, rural, low-education, and low-income households.

Water Security in the Galápagos: Socioecological Determinants and Health Implications.

Water security is strongly associated with important health outcomes and has many socioecological determinants. Several studies have documented the social determinants of water security and impacts of water security on health, independently. Yet few have examined both components in one setting.

Water, food, and the dual burden of disease in Galápagos, Ecuador.

Objective: Rapid development in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) has led to changes in diet that have outpaced water and sanitation improvements, contributing to a dual burden of overweight and noncommunicable disease risk factors (OWT/NCD) and undernutrition and infectious disease symptoms (UND/ID) within individuals and households. Yet, little work has examined the joint impact of water and food exposures on the development of the dual burden.

Methods: We use data from Ecuador's nationally representative Encuesta Nacional de Salud y Nutrición (ENSANUT-ECU) to test whether water access and quality and diet quality and security are associated with OWT/NCD and UND/ID among 1119 children and 1582 adults in Galápagos.

Palm Oil in Myanmar: A Spatiotemporal Analysis of the Effects of Industrial Farming on Biodiversity Loss.

Background: Palm oil consumption is potentially deleterious to human health, and its production has resulted in 11 million hectares of deforestation globally. Importing roughly 394,000 metric tons of palm oil in 2012 alone, the Burmese government has recently pushed for intensive oil palm development to sate domestic demand for consumption and become international market players. Given well-studied linkages between biodiversity loss and ecosystem instability, this study aims to characterize the nature of deforestation for oil palm production in Myanmar, its relationship to increased biodiversity loss, and contextualize the potential impacts of this loss on diets and human health in rural Myanmar.