Healthy food on the menu as research teams join forces in Tamworth

Deakin University preventative health experts have joined a team of researchers in Tamworth this week in the first step of a long-term project aimed at improving nutrition-related health outcomes within the community.

Members of the Global Centre for Preventative health and Nutrition (GLOBE) in Deakin's Institute for Health Transformation (IHT) met with researchers from the University of Newcastle's Department of Rural Health, Tamworth Regional Council and Hunter New England and Central Coast Primary Health Network to begin the design stage of a plan aimed at better understanding the local food environment and determining how good food choices can be made easier for people.

GLOBE research fellow Dr Cindy Needham said it was exciting to bring together some of the best minds in research and preventative health to design a community model that will be genuinely helpful.

'This week is all about getting to know the communities of Tamworth and its surrounding districts, and understanding the unique challenges they face achieving a healthy diet,' Dr Needham said.

'One of the key drivers in helping people live healthy lives is improving access to healthy food, especially affordable and good quality fruit and vegetables.

'We know that in large rural towns, shopping for fresh and healthy produce can sometimes be difficult due to the long distances required to travel and more limited retail choices. This is multiplied for the people who live in smaller or more isolated towns. This can lead to a reliance on foods that keep for longer on the shelf, which may not be as healthy as their fresh counterparts.

'This project will allow us to get to know the community and work with them to design solutions that we hope will improve their access healthy food.'

Local nutrition researcher Dr Tracy Schumacher from the University of Newcastle's Department of Rural Health said they were delighted to be able to work with members of the GLOBE team and can't wait to get started.

'Our dedicated local working group has been developing a number of projects over the years to help improve health outcomes for our district, and we have long been waiting for an opportunity like the one offered by Dr Needham. It would have taken us many years to get to the same point on our own,' Dr Schumacher said.

The research project has received $750,000 from the Australian Government's Medical Research Future Fund to develop and test an online tool that will help the team understand the different ways people access and buy food and how this influences the health of their diet.

Developed with the assistance of Deakin's Institute for Intelligent Systems Research and Innovation (IISRI), home to Australia's largest research team in systems modelling and simulation, the digital tool will be used to gather the information needed for the team to work with the community to find ways to improve the access and affordability of healthy food.