Our research impact
Our joint effort with the research community, community leaders, remote community store owners, Aboriginal-led organisations and health service providers has not only empowered the local food retail sector and strengthened how we do research together but has been a catalyst for a collective approach to improving community health outcomes and influencing community food environments and the food system.
The Remote Food Systems Program involves a number of different studies responding to the needs of communities. These studies create evidence to:
- Guide remote food retail store practice and policy for improved nutrition
- Aid Store Directors and store owners with evidence to support leadership and decision-making for improved health
- Provide support, tools and technology to support health practitioners
- Moderate the impact of commercial determinants of health on remote food retail stores, and
- Inform more effective policy to improve community level food security.
Our program has supported the continued growth of remote stores into leading health-enabling organisations. Evidence from the Healthy Stores 2020 study has been translated into the policy and practice of all remote store retail organisations and is inspiring national and international efforts in healthy food retail. This impact has been possible through a genuine partnership established over many years between the university sector and remote community leaders through The Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation (ALPA), an Indigenous retail organisation, which has been a trailblazer in seeking solutions for better health for the communities it serves.
The Benchmarking for Healthy Stores project has supported increased capability of stores and particularly Aboriginal store directors to access and use data to implement and monitor best practice in their stores, to drive health improvement.
The Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC) project, led by Dr Beau Cubillo, has developed Aboriginal-led research that demonstrates the important social and cultural values linked to food and nutrition in remote communities and the need for further consideration of these within food security initiatives.
Together with community, we have produced evidence that is directly informing national, state and territory policy relating to food and nutrition.
We contribute to the Closing the Gap Health and Wellbeing outcome area and Priority Reform 1: Formal partnerships and shared decision-making; and Priority Reform 4: Shared access to data and information at a regional level of the Closing the Gap National Agreement. Our program contributes to the UN sustainable development goals 3 and 10: Good health and wellbeing and Reducing inequalities.
Our program directly informs the National Strategy for Food Security in Remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities, the National Indigenous Australians Agency Voluntary Code of Conduct for remote stores, the Northern Territory Remote Stores Program and the Health and Wellbeing Queensland Gather + Grow Strategy.
We are co-founders and members of the Coalition for Healthy Remote Stores and members of the FAO Global Hub on Indigenous Peoples Food Systems.
We are collaborators on the Health and Wellbeing Queensland Remote Stores Program, University of Queensland Remote Food Security Project, Deakin University led Promoting CHANGE project and the Centre for Research Excellence in Food Retail Environments for Health: Next Generation.
In collaboration with the Centre for Research Excellence in Food Retail Environments for Health: Next Generation we convene the ‘Transforming Food Retail Environments to be Health-Enabling’ short course. Registration now open.