Epidemiology for Food Preparedness and Public Health:The Resilient North Project

Background:
Food preparedness is often discussed in terms of food supply and logistics, while its relevance for securing public health is less explicitly addressed. At the same time, public health research has a long tradition of studying dietary patterns, health behaviours, and social inequalities in the population as key explanatory factors and targets for prevention. Disruptions related to societal change, crises, or emerging threats may have consequences for diet, nutrition, and existing health inequalities.
This presentation argues that food preparedness should be understood as a way of strengthening public health, and that epidemiological methods can be used to generate knowledge on how crises may potentially affect population health – a knowledge essential for building robust and resilient societies.
Methods:
The presentation is based on the Resilient North project and outlines a planned analytical framework using data from two large population-based health surveys in Northern Norway: The Tromsø Study and the Norwegian Women and Health Study (NOWAC). Scenario-based perspectives will be used to examine how different threats—such as war, crises, and other disruptions—may affect food production in Northern Norway and food availability. These scenarios will be linked to potential changes in dietary patterns, which will then form the basis for epidemiological analyses of how nutrition-related health risk profiles in the population may change under different threats.
Results:
Using population dietary data in a preparedness context illustrates how epidemiological methods can move beyond traditional exposure–outcome analyses to assess how threats may alter health-related risk factors and population health risks. The approach makes it possible to identify population groups with different capacities to maintain adequate diets under changing conditions and to examine how local and regional food resources may contribute to nutritional resilience. These analyses illustrate the added value of epidemiological data for informing food preparedness and public health planning.
Conclusion:
Epidemiological analyses of population-based dietary data represent a valuable, yet underused, resource in food preparedness research. In times of societal change and renewed threat landscapes, applying public health methods to preparedness questions can strengthen knowledge-based planning and support strategies that promote both preparedness and long-term population health.