WHAT WE DO
“Health is ... a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living.”
Healthy Stores | Healthy SocieTies
Food stores represent the confluence of individual choices and the policy decisions we have made collectively about our food systems and societies. Stores are part of our community and consumer built environments, full of food—and information, ideas, transactions, power.
COVID-19 has only reinforced the social impact of how our lives intersect with others in our communities, through everyday decisions in the grocery store.
Where, how, and why we buy food, as well as what we buy and eat, also has a big influence on our health.
The consumer food environment has a critical role in shaping food access, food affordability, and social equity. It is also a sociocultural determinant of population diet and individual dietary behaviour.
Our research uses strategies from population health, management, political sociology, and nutrition science. We do observational research, small and large intervention studies, policy analysis, and share stories. We work with businesses, planners, public health practitioners, nongovernmental organizations, and community leaders to learn what solutions work best for local environments and contexts.
Food, Health, and Resource Distribution
When households have inadequate income to access food, it represents a serious level of material deprivation. Food insecurity is a striking measure of inequity in our societies. It is the consequence of an unequal, unfair, and unjust distribution of resources. Experiencing food insecurity means being predisposed to poorer mental and physical health, and increased need for health care.
Good public policy can address and prevent food insecurity. Reducing food insecurity through policy means increasing what we can achieve together.
Our Food Policy Lab examines regional and social differences in the cost of food, healthy population diet, and health equity.
With Dr. Lynn McIntyre at the University of Calgary, Dr. Mah was also co-lead of the policy projects for the PROOF: Food Insecurity Policy Research program, which continues to share knowledge and promote evidence-informed options to address household food insecurity in Canada within today’s policies and politics.
Projects | CANADA | ATLANTIC CANADA
CELLAR Study (2020-2021 Canadian Institutes of Health Research) is a study geared towards investigating the nutritional impacts of how we eat during the COVID-19 pandemic in Atlantic Canada. To learn more visit: https://cellarstudy.ca/
Healthy Stores NL (2019-2022, Heart and Stroke Foundation) is a province-wide study of the consumer food environment in Newfoundland and Labrador, with a special focus on retailer support and engagement.
Through Investigating the Cost and Correlates of a Healthy Diet in Canada (2019-2021, Canadian Institutes of Health Research), we are examining how diet costs affect dietary adequacy in Canada at a population level, including regional and interprovincial disparities in the cost of a healthy diet for Atlantic Canada.
Through Grocery Gateways (2019-2022, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) we are investigating how public policy tools can support and grow the business potential for healthy retailing in Atlantic Canada.
The Analysis of Pricing Policy LEvers (APPLE) study (2020-2021) is a partnership with Nova Scotia Health to examine the effect of price and merchandising interventions in health authority retail settings under the context of the new NSHA Healthy Eating Policy.
RESEARCH PARTNERSHIP Networks
Our lab is a member of INFORMAS Canada (2020-2023, Canadian Institutes of Health Research). INFORMAS is a global network of public-interest organisations and researchers that aims to monitor, benchmark and support public and private sector actions to increase healthy food environments and reduce the burden of noncommunicable diseases. INFORMAS-Canada is led by Dr. Lana Vanderlee (Laval University). We lead the module on retail food environments in collaboration with Dr. Leia Minaker (University of Waterloo), and contribute to other INFORMAS monitoring and knowledge exchange.
Dr. Mah is an Associate Investigator in the RE-FRESH Centre for Research Excellence (2019-2024, Australian National Healthand Medical Research Council) led by Dr. Anna Peeters (Deakin University) and Australian and international colleagues, to support healthy retail food environment research, capacity building, and knowledge exchange.
With Dr. Irena Knezevic at Carleton University, we are the Atlantic Canada co-lead for FLEdGE, Food: Locally Embedded, Globally Engaged (2015-2020, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council), a global research partnership on sustainable food systems led by Wilfrid Laurier University.
FRESH-IT (2015-2019, Canadian Institutes of Health Research) was a knowledge exchange initiative with public health practitioners in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario, and British Columbia to support the development of context-relevant healthy retailing interventions. This project wrapped in 2019 and we will continue to share outcomes as they become available.
Projects | AUSTRALIA | NORTHERN TERRITORY & QUEENSLAND
With Dr. Julie Brimblecombe (Monash University) and Australian colleagues, Dr. Mah is a Chief Investigator for Healthy Stores 2020 (2019-2021, Australian National Health and Medical Research Council), a partnership between nutrition researchers and the Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation to assess health and business impacts of sugar merchandising in remote Indigenous community stores.
With Dr. Megan Ferguson (University of Queensland) and Australian colleagues, in partnership with the Apunipima Cape York Health Council and Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, Dr. Mah is a Chief Investigator for the Remote Food Security project, a study of healthy food affordability and food security among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and their families (2020-2022, Australian National Health and Medical Research Council).