FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY AND EQUITY
Current Projects
![logo_dark_horz[1].png](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/64f510_5b4e4f2811b74b2e82fc21fef29d48db~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_631,h_86,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/logo_dark_horz%5B1%5D.png){kind=logo}
National Food Access and COVID Research Team (NFACT)
The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on food systems around the world. Meredith and the lab, along with collaborators within and beyond UVM, are leading a national effort to document food access, security and systems impacts from COVID-19 through the National Food Access and COVID Research Team (NFACT). NFACT collaborators are in 15 states across 18 study sites, which began in Vermont. The initial survey conducted in Vermont was utilized across other study sites for common measurements. The first combined study of the effort, a collection of more than 27,000 individuals in the first year of the pandemic was published in Current Developments in Nutrition.
​
NFACT has made their survey instruments and codebooks open access and freely available to all researchers on the Harvard Dataverse.
​
Additional resources can be found on the NFACT website:
​
Meredith talks about factors related to food security with Dr. Rachel Schattman at the University of Maine, a collaborator on food security research.
Food and Health Outcomes in Rural New England during and since the COVID-19 Pandemic
Two of the early NFACT teams included Vermont and Maine, who have continued to collaborate on additional research in Northern New England during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Funded through the Northern New England Clinical and Translational Research Center, The Gund Institute for Environment and a 2022 USDA rural development grant, the team from UVM and University of Maine are documenting the longer-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security, nutrition, and health outcomes. A particularly important aspect of this project also explores the role of Home Food Production (HFP) including gardening, fishing, foraging, hunting, and raising animals for food. HFP is prevalent in New England, and the previous and ongoing research of the team has demonstrated its importance for food insecure households, nutrition and diet, and mental health outcomes.
​
This project is developing a series of geospatial health and food access scales across the region to pinpoint areas of low access and economic development opportunities. The project is also exploring the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on marginalized and underserved populations including rural low-income, LGBTQ+, and BIPOC respondents and households.
​
Percent of respondents from Maine and Vermont engaging in Home Food Production (HFP) over the course of several years during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Food and Nutrition Security and Global Change
​​
Food and nutrition security are changing quickly because of a variety of global changes and crises, including climate change, expansion of technologies, and global land changes. Meredith's work has examined these impacts globally through a variety of studies using large-scale datasets. These include:
​
- Child nutrition and dietary diversity and climate change
In a paper published in Environmental Research Letters, "Climate impacts associated with reduced diet diversity in children across nineteen countries", Meredith and colleagues demonstrate the effect of temperature and rainfall impacts on child diet diversity.
​
- Large scale land acquisitions and their impact on diet diversity
In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, "Impact of transnational land acquisitions on local food security and dietary diversity", Meredith and colleagues show a paradox where large scale land deals simultaneously contribute to closing the global yield gap by increasing crop production, while threatening local food security by redirecting key dietary nutrients toward the export market.
​
- Irrigation expansion and diet diversity
Research exploring the sustainable and unsustainable expansion of irrigation and its relationship to dietary diversity among children in 30 countries finds unique tradeoffs.
​
​
