Addendum to Informatics for Health 2017: Advancing both science and practice

This article presents presentation and poster abstracts that were mistakenly omitted from the original publication

The State of WIC Report: Healthier Pregnancies, Babies, and Young Children during COVID-19

The inaugural State of WIC report is a unified resource for WIC providers, researchers, health professionals, non-profit organizations, and others to showcase the scope and depth of WIC services and recommendations to strengthen the WIC program, including in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The report brings together existing research and data into one document to tell a complete story on the impact of WIC. It includes data profiles for each WIC state agency, including Indian Tribal Organizations and US Territories. The facts and figures of the reports are supplemented by quotes sharing the lived experiences of WIC participants and testimonials from WIC providers

State of WIC

The State of WIC report—supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation—is a unified resource for WIC providers, administrators, and researchers to showcase the landscape of WIC services and emerging WIC program priorities throughout 2020, including the response to the COVID-19 pandemic

A Study Of Food Hub Buyers In Vermont: Motivation, Marketing, And Strategy

Food hubs have been discussed as a promising option for scaling-up the local food system while maintaining close relationships and shared responsibility amongst producers and consumers. Food hubs have the capacity to share important messages about food safety, origin, and production methods with consumers, however little is known about if, and how, food hubs communicate the value of local food to their buyers. This is crucial when assuring value to the consumer, which is necessary for the long-term sustainability of the food hub model. It is important to know more about these methods and practices because these messages can impact the long-term viability of food hubs and local agriculture, as well as community health and economic stability. This thesis explores the motivation behind why buyers chose to buy through food hubs, what information provided by food hubs is useful in marketing and selling local products, and how buyers allocate their money and their time that allows them to efficiently purchase local products. A mixed methods approach was used to gather data. Qualitative research methods were used in conducting semi-structured interviews with key informants. Interview questions focused on local food marketing strategies and practices, motivations for buying local, consumer behavior, firmographic characteristics, communication, challenges, opportunities, and relationships. In addition, data was collected through an online survey that followed the same themes. These themes were identified through a review of alternative food network literature, which identified gaps in knowledge on the buyer-side of the food hub value chain. The themes that emerged from these semi-structured interviews and online survey have been used to better understand buyer motivations for purchasing local food through food hubs, how buyers make use of the information, services, and marketing material provided by food hubs, and what strategies buyers use to integrate local food purchasing efficiently into their budget

A Mixed-Methods Investigation of Australian Supermarkets’ Corporate Social Responsibility Commitments to Public Health: The Case of Supermarket Own Brand Foods

This PhD examined Australian supermarkets’ corporate social responsibility commitments that impact public health, and evidence of practical application, by analysing the contribution of supermarket own brand foods to Australian within-store food environments. A mixed-methods approach was used because so little was known about the topic. Findings from the eight included studies show how Australian supermarkets exert power over the food system and impact public health by the decisions they make

Enhancing the Prediction of Missing Targeted Items from the Transactions of Frequent, Known Users

The ability for individual grocery retailers to have a single view of its customers across all of their grocery purchases remains elusive, and is considered the “holy grail” of grocery retailing. This has become increasingly important in recent years, especially in the UK, where competition has intensified, shopping habits and demographics have changed, and price sensitivity has increased. Whilst numerous studies have been conducted on understanding independent items that are frequently bought together, there has been little research conducted on using this knowledge of frequent itemsets to support decision making for targeted promotions. Indeed, having an effective targeted promotions approach may be seen as an outcome of the “holy grail”, as it will allow retailers to promote the right item, to the right customer, using the right incentives to drive up revenue, profitability, and customer share, whilst minimising costs. Given this, the key and original contribution of this study is the development of the market target (mt) model, the clustering approach, and the computer-based algorithm to enhance targeted promotions. Tests conducted on large scale consumer panel data, with over 32000 customers and 51 million individual scanned items per year, show that the mt model and the clustering approach successfully identifies both the best items, and customers to target. Further, the algorithm segregates customers into differing categories of loyalty, in this case it is four, to enable retailers to offer customised incentives schemes to each group, thereby enhancing customer engagement, whilst preventing unnecessary revenue erosion. The proposed model is compared with both a recently published approach, and the cross-sectional shopping patterns of the customers on the consumer scanner panel. Tests show that the proposed approach outperforms the other approach in that it significantly reduces the probability of having “false negatives” and “false positives” in the target customer set. Tests also show that the customer segmentation approach is effective, in that customers who are classed as highly loyal to a grocery retailer, are indeed loyal, whilst those that are classified as “switchers” do indeed have low levels of loyalty to the selected grocery retailer. Applying the mt model to other fields has not only been novel but yielded success. School attendance is improved with the aid of the mt model being applied to attendance data. In this regard, an action research study, involving the proposed mt model and approach, conducted at a local UK primary school, has resulted in the school now meeting the required attendance targets set by the government, and it has halved its persistent absenteeism for the first time in four years. In medicine, the mt model is seen as a useful tool that could rapidly uncover associations that may lead to new research hypotheses, whilst in crime prevention, the mt value may be used as an effective, tangible, efficiency metric that will lead to enhanced crime prevention outcomes, and support stronger community engagement. Future work includes the development of a software program for improving school attendance that will be offered to all schools, while further progress will be made on demonstrating the effectiveness of the mt value as a tangible crime prevention metric

Determining key research areas for healthier diets and sustainable food systems in Viet Nam

Vietnamese food systems are undergoing rapid transformation, with important implications for human and environmental health and economic development. Poverty has decreased, and diet quality and undernutrition have improved significantly since the end of the Doi Moi reform period (1986-1993) as a result of Viet Nam opening its economy and increasing its regional and global trade. Yet poor diet quality is still contributing the triple burden of malnutrition, with 25 percent stunting among children under age 5, 26 percent and 29 percent of women and children, respectively, anemic, and 21 percent of adults overweight. Agricultural production systems have shifted from predominantly diverse smallholder systems to larger more commercialized and specialized systems, especially for crops, while the ‘meatification’ of the Vietnamese diet is generating serious trade-offs between improved nutrition and sustainability of the Vietnamese food systems. The food processing industry has developed rapidly, together with food imports, resulting in new and processed food products penetrating the food retail outlets, trending towards an increase in the Westernized consumption patterns that are shifting nutrition-related problems towards overweight and obesity and, with it, an increase of non-communicable disease-related health risks. While regulatory policies exist across the food system, these are not systematically implemented, making food safety a major concern for consumers and policy makers alike. Where data exists, it is not easy to aggregate with data from across food system dimensions, making it difficult for Viet Nam to make an informed analysis of current and potential food system trade-offs. In our research, we reviewed existing literature and data, and applied a food systems framework to develop an initial food systems profile for Viet Nam and to identify a comprehensive set a of research questions to fill current data gaps identified through the review. Insights on these would provide the comprehensive evidence needed to inform policy makers on how to develop new food systems policies for Viet Nam, and further refine and improve existing policies to achieve better quality diets and more sustainable food systems in Viet Nam. Based on these, we then engaged with stakeholders to develop research priorities in the Viet Nam context and identified 25 priority research questions. This paper aims to stimulate such reflections by clearly outlining key areas for research, government policy, and development programs on priority investment to build the evidence base around inclusive food systems interventions that aim to result in healthier diets and more sustainable food systems for Viet Nam