Pioneering a national ‘Food Atlas’ to map, measure and monitor food access across Australia

Investigators/Team: Prof Gina Trapp, Assistant Research Prof Lukar Thornton, Dr Matthew Cooper, Dr Claire Pulker, Dr Alexia Bivoltsis, Assoc Prof Daniel Weiss, Assoc Prof Suzanna Cramb, Catrina McStay, Frith Klug, Michelle Broom

Funding: NHMRC Ideas Grant 2024-2028

Over the next 5 years, the Food Environments Team will pioneer the development of a food atlas to map, measure and monitor food access across Australia. The Australian Food Atlas builds on our Healthway funded pilot project, the WA Food Atlas . The team will develop a ‘Food Business Register’ using a uniform categorisation of food businesses, establish a central repository, and develop a Food Atlas to spatially visualise every communities’ ability to access food. The Food Atlas will be integrated with key demographic, health, and socioeconomic datasets, to identify community areas that are facing disparity and analyse impact on population health outcomes.

Anticipated Translational Impact: Our Australian Food Atlas will provide quantifiable evidence-based information on a community’s ability to access healthy food and/or an excess of unhealthy foods. It will be used by local and state governments to inform food regulation, food policy and nutrition surveillance, public health plans and strategic planning documents, obesity strategies, town planning guidelines and assist advocacy to include public health as a deemed provision in planning law, empowering government to improve the health and wellbeing of their residents.

Contact: Contact the Australian Food Atlas Team at australianfoodatlas@ecu.edu.au

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