Nutrition is a vital factor that exerts a profound and direct impact on health. Food environments significantly influence individuals’ dietary behaviors, health outcomes, and overall food security. Individuals in food deserts and food swamps do not have access to healthier food options. And in both cases, the emphasis is primarily on the physical configuration of the environment as it relates to food availability. This quasi-experimental study aims to investigate the impact of two different food environments (defined to include a social component) on food choices. A total of 246 participants were surveyed by telephone, half of whom were primed with Scenario A (a food environment deficient in healthy options and cues that support and reinforce healthier choices) and half were primed with Scenario B (an environment with an abundance of healthy food options and cues that support and reinforce healthy eating). Ordered logit regression was used for analysis. The results show significant differences in likely food consumption between the groups. Individuals in Scenario B were found to be 4.48 times more likely to consume fruits and vegetables. In addition, it was determined that being a woman increases the probability of consuming more fruits and vegetables by 0.92 times (1/0.52–1), and adherence to a healthy diet increases by 3.64 times. Age and race were not significant predictors. This study highlights the crucial role of environmental factors in shaping dietary habits and underscores the importance of the social components of the food environment in promoting the adoption of healthier dietary habits. Based on these findings, policymakers should prioritize developing strategies that go beyond providing physical access and consider social aspects of the environment in promoting healthy eating habits to improve public health and bolster the food security of communities.

This study draws attention to the potential benefits of leveraging food values to amplify the impact of nutrition education programs. The study has collected data via a telephone survey from 417 randomly selected residents in Guilford County in the state of North Carolina. In our analysis, we have identified and used three underlying dimensions (ethical, social environmental and sensory) that summarize and capture the meaning of food-related values instead of a list of food values commonly used in the literature. Researchers have then used these dimensions as clustering variables to produce three segments from the data: value-positive, value-negative, and hedonic. Results show that residents in the value positive segment had positive perceptions of all values, those in value negative segment had negative perception of all values, and those in the hedonic segment had only positive perception of sensory values. A key finding is that value-positive residents have healthier food-related lifestyles and food-related behaviors than residents in the other segments. Interventions should focus on value-negative and hedonic residents and emphasize value-based education tailored to strengthening social/environmental and ethical food values. To ensure success, interventions should graft healthier lifestyle habits and behaviors on familiar behaviors and lifestyle.

This chapter explores the role of community-based organizations (CBOs) in promoting and sustaining an organic/sustainable food production system. The chapter argues that CBOs offer a unique platform for this purpose considering their potential to promote collective impact and overcome our ancestral tendencies that tend to discourage sustainable behavior. The chapter discusses the role of local governance in creating the institutional support that drives collective systemic impacts. The chapter uses data collected via a telephone survey of a census of Community Action Agencies (CAAs) to assess the level of support for sustainable agriculture, organic methods of production, and the responsibility of citizens in supporting locally produced food. The results show that CBOs believe in organic/sustainable and community-based food production system. CAAs support for a sustainable food production system speaks to their potential to serve as a linchpin in their communities for promoting sustainable agricultural production systems and ensuring collective impact.

How we eat dramatically impacts our health, yet millions of Americans live in ‘food deserts’ – areas with limited access to fresh, nutritious food. Recent research reveals that solving this crisis requires looking beyond just physical access to food to understand how our entire community environment shapes our dietary choices. Through a series of pioneering studies, Dr Terrence Thomas and colleagues at North Carolina A&T State University have been investigating how different aspects of our food environment influence what we put on our plates. Their findings suggest that creating lasting change requires reimagining how communities engage with food at every level.

Land-grant universities’ philosophy of education assumes the triumvirate of education, research, and service will produce an improved quality of life and wealth-creating synergies disseminated to communities through Cooperative Extension (Gavazzi & Gee, 2019). In a simpler age, this philosophy worked well. In today’s global, technology-mediated, complex society, a transformational overhaul is necessary to amplify and broaden the impact of potential synergies through a robust engagement process. As a path forward, we propose building renaissance transdisciplinary teams, reimagining reward and evaluation systems, and elevating engagement to a position of primacy in strategy and structure. We could elevate Extension to university-wide status and foster engagement as a critical component of teaching (learning) and research (discovery).Using quantitative and qualitative data from the 1890 research directors, Extension administrators, and community stakeholders, we found strong support for greater university engagement with the community, especially for taking a deeper dive into long-term problem-solving by cocreating and codesigning viable solutions. There was also strong support for allocating additional technical and financial resources to build the university’s community engagement portfolio. These data also draw attention to the need to elevate community engagement to the level of teaching and research and to establish the presence of the university in the community.