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Call for papers - Food environments and health

Guest Editors

Camila Corvalán, MD, MPH, PhD, University of Chile, Chile
Jasmine Fledderjohann, PhD, Lancaster University, UK
Marisa Miraldo, PhD, Imperial College Business School, UK
Paraskevi Seferidi, PhD, Imperial College London, UK

Submission Status: Open   |   Submission Deadline: 6 November 2024


BMC Medicine is calling for submissions to our Collection on food environments and their impact on public health. This Collection seeks to highlight the physical, economic, social, and cultural contexts in which individuals make choices about what to eat, including the availability of healthy and unhealthy foods, the influence of marketing and advertising, as well as the impact of policies and regulations related to food production and distribution. By deepening our understanding of food environments’ impacts on dietary choices and health outcomes, we seek to support SDG 2's mission of achieving food security, improving nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture.

New Content ItemThis Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 2: Zero Hunger.

Meet the Guest Editors

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Camila Corvalán, MD, MPH, PhD, University of Chile, Chile

Dr Camila Corvalán is a full professor at the Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology (INTA) where she coordinates the Center for Research in Food Environments and Nutrition-related Chronic Diseases (CIAPEC). Her research focusses on understanding food environment and its relation to the early origins of obesity and dietary behaviors with an implementation research focus. Currently, she coordinates the INFORMAS food environment platform in Chile and leads the evaluation of the Chilean Food Labelling and Marketing Law, among other food environment policies.

Jasmine Fledderjohann, PhD, Lancaster University, UK

Dr Jasmine Fledderjohann is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Lancaster University. She holds a dual-title PhD in Sociology and Demography from the Pennsylvania State University. She was a postdoctoral fellow in Sociology at the University of Oxford before joining Lancaster in 2016. Since 2020, she has been leading the Food Security for Equitable Futures project, a UKRI funded Future Leaders Fellowship examining the consequences and measurement of food insecurity in Global Majority countries. She is a mixed-methods researcher with research interests in social inequities, including the social causes and consequences of food insecurity, reproductive justice, and social justice in the design and application of digital technology.

Marisa Miraldo, PhD, Imperial College Business School, UK

Marisa Miraldo is Professor of Health Economics in the Department of Economics and Public Policy at Imperial College Business School. She is Academic Director of the MSc in International Health Management. Marisa’s expertise is on behavioral interventions to promote health and wellbeing and the economics and policy of healthcare innovation. She has a track record of leading interdisciplinary research and currently leads several international projects including: the primary prevention workstream of the Global Health Research Unit (GHRU) on Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease in South Asians, where she leads behavioral change interventions to promote better diets; the workstream on behavioral change interventions within the Jameel Institute-Kenneth C. Griffin Initiative for the Economics of Pandemic Preparedness (EPPI); and the workstream on Incentives for Innovation and Equitable access to Innovation within the Hi-Prix Consortia.

Paraskevi Seferidi, PhD, Imperial College London, UK

Dr Seferidi is a Research Fellow at the School of Public Health, Imperial College London. She has a background in nutrition and public health and her research focuses on food systems and food policy, with a specific interest in food system sustainability and systems thinking methods. She holds a MRC Career Development Award that focuses on investigating the complex interconnections between climate change and the double burden of malnutrition, globally and more specifically in Peru, and identifying opportunities for triple-duty actions that concurrently target climate change, overnutrition, and undernutrition.

About the collection

BMC Medicine is calling for submissions to our Collection on food environments and their impact on public health.

Nearly 70% of all deaths worldwide are attributed to non-communicable diseases, which are closely linked to diet and lifestyle. It is estimated that more than 41 million children under the age of five and 1.9 billion adults suffer from obesity, which is now increasingly a problem in low- and middle-income countries. Additionally, in 2022, globally, 148.1 million children under the age of 5 years of age were classified as stunted, and 45 million as wasted. Given these statistics, it is crucial to deepen our understanding of the food environments that people must navigate daily.

This Collection seeks to highlight the physical, economic, social, and cultural contexts in which individuals make choices about what to eat, including the availability of healthy and unhealthy foods, the influence of marketing and advertising, as well as the impact of policies and regulations related to food production and distribution. By deepening our understanding of food environments’ impacts on dietary choices and health outcomes, we seek to support SDG 2's mission of achieving food security, improving nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture.

We invite contributions that explore topics including, but not limited to, the following:

  • Nutritional epidemiology and food consumption patterns: Evaluate the influence of cultural, socioeconomic, and geographic factors on dietary habits and their impact on health and inequalities.
  • Food accessibility and security: Explore the impact of food deserts and food swamps on communities, as well as the role of policy, supply chains, migration, rural land use changes, and urban planning in shaping food environments. Document who is at risk of food insecurity, where, and with what social and biological consequences.
  • Food marketing and its effects: Analyze the impact of food advertising, especially on children and vulnerable populations, and identify potential regulatory and behavioral interventions to mitigate the adverse effects of marketing.
  • Food sustainability and health: Examine the environmental and health implications of food consumption, production, and distribution and assess the feasibility and impact of sustainable diets. Additionally, explore the impact of climate change on food environments, including food security, availability, affordability, and quality.
  • Interventions and policy initiatives: Evaluate the effectiveness of various strategies, such as behavioral interventions, social policies, trade and agricultural policies, taxation, and labeling, in improving food environments and reducing food insecurity.
  • Food technology and innovation: Explore the impact of food processing, fortification, and new technologies on nutrition and health.
  • Behavioral science approaches for better diets: Examine decision-making, food preferences, and interventions designed to promote healthier choices based on environmental cues and individual perceptions.
  • Systems science approaches to better nutrition: Analyze the interconnected components of food systems, helping identify how changes in one part affect the whole, offering insights for systemic interventions that can improve nutrition.
  • The role of the built environment on nutrition and health: Explore the built environment's impact on nutrition and health, including food accessibility and physical surroundings.


Image credit: Art Allianz / Fotolia

  2. Context-specific interventions may contribute to sustained behaviour change and improved health outcomes. We evaluated the real-world effects of supermarket nudging and pricing strategies and mobile physical a...

    Authors: Josine M. Stuber, Joreintje D. Mackenbach, Gert-Jan de Bruijn, Marleen Gillebaart, Jody C. Hoenink, Cédric N. H. Middel, Denise T. D. de Ridder, Yvonne T. van der Schouw, Edith G. Smit, Elizabeth Velema, Anne L. Vos, Wilma E. Waterlander, Jeroen Lakerveld and Joline W. J. Beulens
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2024 22:52
    Content type: Research article Published on:

    The Commentary to this article has been published in BMC Medicine 2024 22:87

Submission Guidelines

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BMC Medicine encourages submissions of front matter articles and original research, including clinical trials (phase I-III, randomized-controlled, either positive or negative trials), epidemiological studies (retrospective or prospective), systematic reviews and meta-analyses, -omics, medical imaging, genomics studies and biomarkers research. Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have read our submission guidelines. 

To submit your manuscript to this Collection, please use our online submission system and indicate in your covering letter that you would like the article to be considered for inclusion in the "Food environments and health" Collection.

All articles submitted to Collections are peer-reviewed in line with the journal’s standard peer-review policy and are subject to all of the journal’s standard editorial and publishing policies. This includes the journal’s policy on competing interests. 

The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editor or Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.