Sustainable Healthy Food Group
The Sustainable Healthy Food Group conducts research on policies, interventions and scenarios to shift the population towards healthy, sustainable food environments.
We work with local, national and international policymakers, as well as community organisations, and food industry partners that are willing to deliver interventions in real-life settings.
Our approach includes:
- Co-designing and evaluating interventions, and understanding their underlying mechanisms, via proof-of-concept online studies and field studies.
- Designing and modelling the impact of potential policies or interventions in the food system on health, health inequalities and environmental sustainability.
- Engaging policymakers and the public with our research.
We are currently funded by the Wellcome Trust, NIHR and UKRI amongst others. We do not receive funding from the food industry.
Research Projects
PUBLICATIONS
Hartmann-Boyce J, Theodoulou A, Oke JL, Butler AR, Scarborough P, Bastounis A, Dunigan A, Byadya R, Hobbs FDR, Sniehotta FF, Jebb SA, Aveyard P. Association between characteristics of behavioural weight loss programmes and weight change after programme end: systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ, 2021;374:n1840.
Bandy LK, Hollowell S, Harrington RA, Scarborough P, Jebb S, Rayner M. Assessing the healthiness of UK food companies’ product portfolios using food sales and nutrient composition data. PLoS One, 2021;16(8):e0254833.
Piernas C, Cook B, Stevens R, Stewart C, Hollowell J, Scarborough P, Jebb S. Estimating the effect of moving meat-free products to the meat aisle on sales of meat and meat-free products: a non-randomised controlled intervention study in a large UK supermarket chain. PLoS Medicine, 2021;18(7):e1003715.
Cobiac LJ, Scarborough P. Modelling future trajectories of obesity and body mass index in England. PLoS One, 2021;16(6):e0252072.
Springmann M, Spajic L, Clark M, Poore J, Hertforth A, Webb P, Rayner M, Scarborough P. The healthiness and sustainability of national and global food-based dietary guidelines. BMJ, 2020;370:m2322
Impact of the announcement and implementation of the UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy on sugar content, price, product size and number of available soft drinks in the UK, 2015-19: a controlled interrupted time series analysis.
PLoS Medicine, 2020;17(2):e1003025.
Nutrient composition databases in the age of big data: foodDB, a comprehensive, real-time database infrastructure.
BMJ Open, 2019;9:e026652.
Reductions in sugar sales from soft drinks in the UK from 2015-2018.
BMC Medicine, 2020;18:20.
A systematic review, and meta-analysis, examining the prevalence of price promotions on foods and whether they are more likely to be found on less-healthy foods.
Public Health Nutrition, 2020;23(8):1281-1296.
Our Team
-
Peter Scarborough
Professor of Population Health
-
Ben Amies-Cull
Health modeller
-
Richard Harrington
Senior Research Data Scientist
-
Asha Kaur
Senior Researcher
-
Jessica Renzella
RESEARCHER
-
Hannah Forde
Researcher
-
Emma Garnett
Post doctoral Researcher
Contact us
Big Data Institute | Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery
University of Oxford, Old Road Campus, Oxford OX3 7LF
Tel: +44(0)1865 617784
join us
JOB VACANCIES
For our current vacancies and those within the Nuffield Department of Population Health (NDPH), please visit the NDPH Work with us page.
POSTGRADUATE OPPORTUNITIES
We welcome applications from students who wish to study for a DPhil (PhD) in a research area allied to our interests. If you are interested in studying with us, we would like to hear from you. A list of current proposed DPhil projects can be found on the NDPH website.