How to engage across sectors: Lessons on leveraging agriculture for nutrition from the Brazilian school meal program

OBJECTIVE: To provide insights for nutrition and public health practitioners on how to engage with other sectors to achieve public health goals. Specifically, this study provides lessons from the example of integrating family farming and a nutrition into a legal framework in Brazil on how to successfully shift other sectors toward nutrition goals. METHODS: The study analyzed policy processes that led to a Brazilian law linking family farming with the National School Feeding Program. Main actors involved with the development of the law were interviewed and their narratives were analyzed using a well-established theoretical framework. RESULTS: The study provides five key lessons for promoting intersectorality. First, nutrition and health practitioners can afford to embrace bold ideas when working with other sectors. Second, they should engage with more powerful sectors (or subsectors) and position nutrition goals as providing solutions that meet the interests of these sector. Third is the need to focus on a common goal – which may not be explicitly nutrition-related – as the focus of the intersectoral action. Fourth, philosophical, political, and governance spaces are needed to bring together different sectors. Fifth, evidence on the success of the intersectoral approach increases the acceptance of the process. CONCLUSIONS: This study on policy processes shows how a convergence of factors enabled a link between family farming and school feeding in Brazil. It highlights that there are strategies to engage other sectors toward nutrition goals which provides benefits for all sectors involved. DESCRIPTORS: School Feeding. Sustainable Agriculture. Farmers Associations. Nutrition Programs and Policies. Food and Nutrition Security

A novel uncertainty assessment protocol for integrated ecosystem services-life cycle assessments: A comparative case of nature-based solutions

Integrating ecosystem services and life cycle assessment is gaining increasing attention for the analysis of environmental costs and benefits associated with human activities covering multiple geographical scales and life cycle stages. Such integration is particularly relevant for evaluating the sustainability of nature-based solutions. However, merging these methods introduces additional uncertainties. This paper introduces a novel protocol to assess uncertainties in combined ecosystem services-life cycle assessment, focusing on ecosystem services accounting, life cycle inventory of foreground systems, and life cycle impact assessment characterisation factors. Applied to a nature-based solution case study compared to no-action and energy-intensive scenarios, the uncertainties were analysed using multi-method global sensitivity analysis. The robustness of the analysis results was assessed through convergence plots and statistical tests. Findings reveal significant uncertainties, especially in life cycle impact assessment characterisation factors, with the extent varying by impact category. Uncertainties in foreground life cycle inventory, particularly in land use of nature-based solutions scenario, are also notable. Compared to these, uncertainties associated with indicators of impact on ecosystem services (uncertainty arising from input variability in ecosystem services accounting) are relatively lower. This study underscores the critical role of uncertainty assessment in enhancing the reliability of integrated assessments for nature-based solutions, providing a framework to identify and quantify key uncertainties, thereby supporting more informed decision-making

Transformation tools enabling the implementation of nature-based solutions for creating a resourceful circular city

The linear pattern of production-consumption-disposal of cities around the world will continue to increase the emission of pollutants and stocks of waste, as well as to impact on the irreversible deterioration of non-renewable stocks of raw materials. A transition towards a circular pattern proposed by the concept of ‘Circular Cities’ is gaining momentum. As part of this urban transition, the emergent use of Nature-based Solutions (NBS) intends to shift public opinion and utilize technology to mitigate the urban environmental impact. In this paper, an analysis of the current research and practical investments for implementing NBS under the umbrella of Circular Cities is conducted. A combined appraisal of the latest literature and a survey of ongoing and completed National-European research and development projects provides an overview of the current enabling tools, methodologies, and initiatives for public engagement. It also identifies and describes the links between facilitators and barriers with respect to existing policies and regulations, public awareness and engagement, and scientific and technological instruments. The paper concludes introducing the most promising methods, physical and digital technologies that may lead the way to Sustainable Circular Cities. The results of this research provide useful insight for citizens, scientists, practitioners, investors, policy makers, and strategists to channel efforts on switching from a linear to a circular thinking for the future of cities

Evidence for Two Numerical Systems That Are Similar in Humans and Guppies

Background: Humans and non-human animals share an approximate non-verbal system for representing and comparing numerosities that has no upper limit and for which accuracy is dependent on the numerical ratio. Current evidence indicates that the mechanism for keeping track of individual objects can also be used for numerical purposes; if so, its accuracy will be independent of numerical ratio, but its capacity is limited to the number of items that can be tracked, about four. There is, however, growing controversy as to whether two separate number systems are present in other vertebrate species. Methodology/Principal Findings: In this study, we compared the ability of undergraduate students and guppies to discriminate the same numerical ratios, both within and beyond the small number range. In both students and fish the performance was ratio-independent for the numbers 1–4, while it steadily increased with numerical distance when larger numbers were presented. Conclusions/Significance: Our results suggest that two distinct systems underlie quantity discrimination in both humans and fish, implying that the building blocks of uniquely human mathematical abilities may be evolutionarily ancient, datin

Evaluating the Sustainability of a Small-Scale Low-Input Organic Vegetable Supply System in the United Kingdom

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Evaluating the Impact of Nature-Based Solutions: A Handbook for Practitioners

The Handbook aims to provide decision-makers with a comprehensive NBS impact assessment framework, and a robust set of indicators and methodologies to assess impacts of nature-based solutions across 12 societal challenge areas: Climate Resilience; Water Management; Natural and Climate Hazards; Green Space Management; Biodiversity; Air Quality; Place Regeneration; Knowledge and Social Capacity Building for Sustainable Urban Transformation; Participatory Planning and Governance; Social Justice and Social Cohesion; Health and Well-being; New Economic Opportunities and Green Jobs. Indicators have been developed collaboratively by representatives of 17 individual EU-funded NBS projects and collaborating institutions such as the EEA and JRC, as part of the European Taskforce for NBS Impact Assessment, with the four-fold objective of: serving as a reference for relevant EU policies and activities; orient urban practitioners in developing robust impact evaluation frameworks for nature-based solutions at different scales; expand upon the pioneering work of the EKLIPSE framework by providing a comprehensive set of indicators and methodologies; and build the European evidence base regarding NBS impacts. They reflect the state of the art in current scientific research on impacts of nature-based solutions and valid and standardized methods of assessment, as well as the state of play in urban implementation of evaluation frameworks

Honey, a Gift from Nature to Health and Beauty: A Review

Benefits of honey are contributed by the composition of its elements such as glucose, fructose, glucose oxidase, vitamins and phenolic compounds. For health, honey can be used to treat wounds due to the antibacterial activity conferred by the hydrogen peroxide produced by glucose oxidase in honey. Anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, deodorizing and tissue regeneration activities in honey also help in the wound healing process. It can also be an alternative sweetener for diabetic patients to ensure compliance to a healthy diet. Moreover, honey exerts several effects such as lowering low density lipids and increasing high density lipids, thus reducing risk of atherosclerosis. In terms of beauty, honey can be used on skin and hair. It moisturizes skin through its natural humectant properties contributed by high contents of fructose and glucose. Honey treats acne on the skin due to its antibacterial activity, anti-inflammatory action and tissue repair. The hair can benefit from honey in such a way that the hair has abundance, and becomes easier to comb. However, there have not been as many studies regarding the use of honey in skin in comparison to its use for health. Therefore, future studies on honey could research its use, action and benefits in both cosmetics and dermatology

Towards a specific psychopathology of substance use disorder: Comparison between heroin use disorder and chronic psychotic patients

Background: Addiction is a chronic relapsing condition in which psychiatric phenomena play a crucial role. Psychopathological symptoms in patients with Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) are generally considered to be part of the drug addict personality, or else to be related to the presence of a Dual Disorder (DD), raising doubts about whether patients with long-term SUD possessed psychopathological dimensions. Our research group at the University of Pisa has shed light on the possible definition of a specific psychopathy dimension in SUD. In Heroin Use Disorder (HUD) patients, by applying a PCA factor analysis to the 90 items listed in the SCL90 checklist, a 5-factor solution was identified for the first time and was then confirmed in Alcohol Use Disorder and Cocaine Use Disorder patients. The first factor reflected a depressive 'Worthlessness-Being Trapped' dimension (W/BT); the second factor picked out a ‘Somatic Symptoms’ dimension (SS); the third identified a 'Sensitivity-Psychoticism' dimension (S/P); the fourth a 'Panic Anxiety' dimension (PA); and the fifth a 'Violence-Suicide' dimension (V/S). To confirm their specificity, these dimensions must be able to discriminate patients affected by addiction from those affected by other psychiatric diseases. Methods: In this study 40 chronic psychotic patients (CHR-PSY) were matched with 33 HUD patients according to age and gender, and compared, at univariate and multivariate level, regarding the severity and typology of the SCL90 five dimensions. Results: Low-level education was more frequent in HUD patients, but it was unrelated to psychopathological typology (χ2=8.83; p=0.065) and to severity (except for the SS dimension, F=5.94; p<0.05). Psychopathological typology was able to differentiate HUD from CHR-PSY patients (χ2=14.44; p=0.006). At univariate level, only PA severity was higher in CHR-PSY patients, whereas multivariate discriminant analysis was able to differentiate HUD significantly from CHR-PSY patients (Wilks’ Lambda=0.69; χ2=25.74; df=2; p<0.001), showing that 79.5% of the cases, as originally grouped, had been correctly classified. Conclusions: This study, being able to differentiate HUD from CHR-PSY patients, further supports the specificity of the proposed factorial dimensions of the psychopathology of SUD