Food justice

Agrobiodiversity represents a system of biological organisms that contribute to agri-food production. In a context marked by a significant loss of food-relevant species and a reduction in their genetic diversity, the adoption of strategies to preserve and enhance the diversity of genetic resources that support and complement agricultural production has become a global challenge. Many sustainable development strategies outlined in recent years directly and indirectly attribute a crucial role to agrobiodiversity in meeting food needs, ensuring food system security, promoting food justice, and enhancing well-being in modern living environments...

BACKGROUND: National-scale linear regression-based modeling may mischaracterize localized patterns, including hyperlocal peaks and neighborhood- to regional-scale gradients. For studies focused on within-city differences, this mischaracterization poses a risk of exposure misclassification, affecting epidemiological and environmental justice conclusions. OBJECTIVE: Characterize the difference between intraurban pollution patterns predicted by national-scale land use regression modeling and observation-based estimates within a localized domain and examine the relationship between that difference and urban infrastructure and demographics...

A deeper understanding of the key processes that determine the particle morphologies generated during aerosol droplet drying is highly desirable for spray-drying of powdered pharmaceuticals and foods, predicting the properties of atmospheric particles, and monitoring disease transmission. Particle morphologies are affected by the drying kinetics of the evaporating droplets, which are in turn influenced by the composition of the initial droplet as well as the drying conditions. Herein, we use polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA) to prepare three types of sterically stabilized diblock copolymer nanoparticles comprising the same steric stabilizer block and differing core blocks with z -average diameters ranging from 32 to 238 nm...

The UK food system is distorted by inequalities in access, failing the people most in need, yet it should provide access to safe, nutritious affordable food for all citizens. Dietary patterns are associated with sociodemographic characteristics, with high levels of diet-related disease mortality attributed to poor dietary habits. Disadvantaged UK communities face urgent public health challenges, yet area often treated as powerless recipients of dietary and health initiatives.The need for food system transformation has been illustrated within recent UK government policy drivers and research funding...

BACKGROUND: Home gardens are a species-rich socioecological system with a diverse range of cultivated and naturally occurring plants with the potential to make contributions to address sustainable food, biodiversity and climate crisis. However, there is a dearth of information on the socio-demographic profile of home gardeners and the importance of home gardens to ethnobotany, food security and biodiversity. Therefore, the study aimed to assess the socio-demographic profile of home gardeners in the Sunyani municipality as a case in point for the middle belt of Ghana and to evaluate the diversity of plants in home gardens and their ethnobotanical importance...

The Supreme Court decided Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky in 2019. Justice Clarence Thomas's opinion in the case claimed there was a direct connection between the legalization of abortion, in the late 20th Century, and the beginnings of the birth control movement a full three quarters of a century earlier. "Many eugenicists," Thomas argued, "supported legalizing abortion."Justice Samuel Alito highlighted similar claims in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health , citing a brief entitled "The Eugenic Era Lives on through the Abortion Movement...

Socially disadvantaged groups generally are more likely to reside in areas with less desirable conditions. We examined longitudinal relationships between neighborhood resident characteristics and amenities from 1990 to 2010 in an urban area of Utah, U.S. Four temporal patterns of social inequities are described using mixed-effects models: historical inequities; differential selection into amenity-rich tracts; differential investment in amenities; and simultaneous twenty-year change. Results indicate historical differences by neighborhood socioeconomic status, with lower status tracts having fewer green/natural amenities and higher air pollution in 1990 but also greater walkability and more food stores...

The rapid spread of COVID-19 throughout the world in early 2020 created unprecedented challenges for national governments. Policies developed during the early months of the pandemic, before the first mRNA vaccines were authorized for emergency use, provide a window into national governments' prioritization of populations that were particularly vulnerable. We developed the COVID-19 Health Justice Policy Tracker to capture and categorize these policies using a health justice lens. In this article we present the results of a preliminary analysis of the tracker data...

The spread of COVID-19 in Peru resulted in the declaration of a national health emergency, in which Indigenous peoples were identified as being particularly vulnerable due to their pre-existing poor health indicators and disadvantaged social conditions. The aim of this paper is to examine how the Peruvian government responded to the health and food needs of the Shawi and Ashaninka Indigenous peoples of Peru during the first 18 months of the pandemic (March 2020-August 2021). This study uses both official policy documents and real-world experiences to evaluate policy responses in terms of their immediate impact and their longer-term sustainability and contribution to the improvement of health, well-being and justice for Indigenous communities...

Indigenous communities are disproportionately exposed to contaminated sites, and this poses unique challenges as many Indigenous peoples consider land as an integral part of their culture and economy. This scoping review aimed to identify and map information on contaminated sites and Indigenous peoples in Canada and the US, namely: 1) the relationship between contaminated sites and Indigenous people, and their land and food systems; 2) strategies, challenges, and successes for contaminated sites assessment and management on Indigenous land; and 3) Indigenous leadership and inclusion in contaminated site assessment and management...

The craving for organic cocoa beans has resulted in fraudulent practices such as mislabeling, adulteration, all known as food fraud, prompting the international cocoa market to call for the authenticity of organic cocoa beans before export. In this study, we proposed robust models using laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and chemometric techniques for rapid classification of cocoa beans as either organic or conventional. The LIF measurements were conducted on cocoa beans harvested from organic and conventional farms...

BACKGROUND: Urban organic waste diverted from landfills for use as compost feedstock may help mitigate and adapt to the effects of our changing climate. Yet, compost produced from urban food and yard waste is often a source of contaminants harmful to human and environmental health. Efforts by multiple municipalities are increasing residential and commercial food and yard waste collection; however, finished, tested compost is typically unavailable to those contributing the waste and whose gardens would benefit...

This study examined retention and its relationship to mental health, substance use, and social determinants of health in a randomized clinical trial of a behavioral HIV/sexually transmitted infection prevention intervention with drug-involved Black women ( N  = 348) under community supervision programs in New York City. Using secondary analysis, we used logistic models to test the association between factors related to mental health, substance use, and social determinants of health and follow-up assessment completion (three, six, and 12 months)...

The objective of this study was to assess carcass traits' influence on pork eating quality as evaluated by consumers. A total of 1360 pork chops were used, with 824 from the sirloin end and 536 from the butt end of the loin (Longissimuss thoracis et lumborum), to produce 340 packages, each containing four pork chops. Untrained participants received one package of either sirloin or butt chops, being two pork chops from barrows and two from gilts. Participants answered a survey rating the tenderness, juiciness, flavour, and overall acceptability of each chop on an 8-point scale...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: Limited qualitative research indicates that beggar children might be victims of forced labor, and/or modern slavery. However, research quantifying the manifestations and health-related implications of forced child begging is missing in the literature. Because forced child begging might be physically, mentally, socially and morally harmful to children, research on the subject is needed to inform policymaking. OBJECTIVE: This study addressed the gap in the literature on child begging...

This article examines how systems and institutions influence the distribution of resources in society and, as such, affect livelihoods, food security, and nutrition. It draws on research on the political economy of food, and the governance effects of food aid practices, conducted in Sudan and Somalia and on the role of a social approach to nutrition in situations of famine and mass starvation. This article argues first for the importance of examining political structures as basic causes of malnutrition as they influence whether and how institutions function (in relation to land, markets, employment, aid, or justice)...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This review discusses the urgency of addressing human-caused climate change and its impacts on health and the environment. RECENT FINDINGS: The latest evidence shows that current climate changes are primarily attributable to greenhouse gas emissions from human industrial activity. Exceeding 1.5°C of warming above preindustrial levels is projected to increase extreme weather events, increase rates of heat-related morbidity and mortality and vector-borne disease, exacerbate food and water insecurity, harm biodiversity and agriculture, displace communities, and disproportionately impact disadvantaged groups...

INTRODUCTION: Treatment of interpersonal violence (IPV) patients is often complicated by social and mental health comorbidities. New American College of Surgeons (ACS) requirements include provision of psychosocial support services for recovery after injury. We aim to describe utilization and patient outcomes after provision of Trauma Recovery Services (TRS) at our institution for the IPV population. These services include assistance with food, housing, criminal justice, and advocacy...

Substance use disorders (SUD) have been related to high criminal justice costs, expensive healthcare, social impairment, and decision-making deficits. In non-social decision-making tasks, people with SUD tend to take more risks and choose small immediate rewards than controls. However, few studies have explored how people with SUD behave in social decision-making situations where the resources and profits depend directly on participants' real-time interaction, i.e., social foraging situations. To fulfill this gap, we developed a real-time interaction task to (a) compare the proportion of producers (individuals who tend to search for food sources) and scroungers (individuals who tend to steal or join previously discovered food sources) among participants with SUD and controls with respect to the optimal behavior predicted by the Rate Maximization Model, and (b) explore the relationship between social foraging strategies, prosocial behavior, and impulsivity...