Diet, Data and Interventions Group
Our research covers:
- Mapping the food system. We collect data from online supermarkets and other retailers to build a highly granular dataset of what food and drink are available to be purchased by the public. We collect images and data on price, promotions, nutritional content and ingredients, and link these data with environmental indicators. We have been continuously collecting data since November 2017.
- Evaluating policy-level interventions. Following natural experiment study designs we evaluate the impact of health policies on the nutritional quality of food and food purchases, such as the Soft Drink Industry Levy and progress towards salt and sugar reformulation targets.
- Evaluating store-level interventions. We are developing tools to conduct experimental studies within online supermarkets to evaluate the impact of changes in food marketing on healthy and sustainable food purchases. We also work with colleagues in the Nuffield Department of Primary Health Care Sciences on ‘virtual supermarket’ studies, and evaluations of brick-and-mortar store-level changes in marketing on food purchases.
- Modelling the health, environmental and economic impact of changes in food consumption behaviour. We have built proportional multistate models and microsimulation models that estimate the population health impact of changes in food consumption behaviour in the UK. These models can be used to estimate the cost-effectiveness of food policies including the Soft Drink Industry Levy and weight loss interventions.