Implementing interventions in public food procurement systems to increase environmentally sustainable dietary diversity for the prevention of noncommunicable diseases in India
The Public Distribution System in India provides 800 million individuals on a low-income with food aid, which mainly consists of wheat and rice. Some states have experimented with adding pulses, fresh fruit and vegetables, oils, and iodised salt but this diversification has not been evaluated. The Centre’s work will include the implementation and evaluation of cost-effective, sustainable changes to food aid baskets in the states of Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. These changes aim to improve dietary diversity for NCD prevention, targeting diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
- Describe and characterise the main public food procurement and distribution programmes in India including known impacts on dietary diversity, NCD risks and the environment
- Undertake a comprehensive assessment of options to diversify food baskets in public procurement systems for optimal NCD and environmental outcomes
- Co-design a package of environmentally sustainable interventions in the Public Distribution System (PDS) to improve delivery and uptake of diverse food items for NCD prevention
- Implement the food basket intervention package within PDS systems in the two states and evaluate their effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, acceptability, and scalability.
Effectiveness of water salinity adaptation for control of hypertension in coastal areas of Bangladesh
In Bangladesh storm surges caused by tropical cyclones have led to an increase in water salinity across the coastal belt. This has harmful health effects on local populations, including increased blood pressure, progressive kidney disease and gestational hypertension in pregnant women. The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research Bangladesh (icddr,b) will work to identify and test cost-effective, sustainable solutions to reduce salinity in the water supply in the districts of Khulna and Satkhira.
- Undertake rapid evidence reviews and synthesis in order to determine location and specific form of interventions that may be available.
- Co-produce a basket of interventions to provide and promote use of alternative low salinity water to target populations.
- Implement and evaluate the basket of interventions
- Develop capacity needed for future innovation and implementation research on reducing drinking water salinity.
Identifying and implementing solutions to reduce the impact of plastics burning on NCDs in Indonesia
The unregulated burning of plastic waste in Indonesia releases harmful chemicals, such as dioxins, which pollute the environment and lead to negative health outcomes such as chronic lung disease, heart diseases, and cancers. Researchers will test a range of multi-sectoral interventions to reduce exposure to air pollutants caused by the burning of plastic waste in Malang district, in East Java, targeting cardiovascular disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
- Define plastic burning sources, the amounts of NCD-relevant pollutants emitted and the differential contribution of industry and community-level plastic burning to NCD-relevant pollutants in five study regions in Malang.
- Co-produce and select a basket of multisectoral interventions aimed at effectively reducing NCD-relevant plastic burning pollutants in the study regions.
- Implement and evaluate the basket of interventions.
- Develop the infrastructure and capacity needed for future atmospheric measurement, modelling and implementation research for NCD prevention related to plastics burning.