LASTING: Leading a Sustainability Transition in Nutrition Globally

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Current dietary patterns are unsustainable, representing fundamental threats to human nutrition and health, ecosystems and climate, economic stability, and social equity. Despite recent advances, there are major gaps in diet sustainability research and policy translation. Analyses have largely focused on human health and environmental impacts. Sustainability, however, encompasses four pillars: environmental, health, economic, and social.

The goal of Leading A Sustainability Transition In Nutrition Globally (LASTING) Project, funded by the Friedman School Research Award for Interdisciplinary Nutrition Study (RAFINS), is to produce detailed, compelling, and evidence-based recommendations for incorporating social and economic pillars into full cost accounting of dietary patterns, including novel metrics and methods to better capture the pillars that are still poorly understood. The LASTING Project has 4 inter-linked aims:

  • Aim 1 - Develop a policy-relevant, integrated analytical approach to assess diet sustainability (environmental, health, economic, social) across contexts globally
  • Aim 2 - Assess public understanding of and priorities across the component metrics identified in Aim 1
  • Aim 3 - Estimate the sustainability impacts (environmental, health, social, economic) of shifting to recommended diets and implementing population-based dietary interventions, using the US population as a case study.
  • Aim 4 - Develop the capacity of the team and the Friedman School at large to respond competitively for multi-year external grants focused on sustainable diets.

Visit the LASTING Website