Diet-Related Disease Prevention in a Rural Australian Setting: Understanding Barriers, Enablers, and the Role of Rural Health Services in Supporting Changes in Local Rural Food Environments

Nikita Wheaton; Emily Alston; Vincent L Versace; Michael Field; Anna Wong Shee; Jane Jacobs; Kathryn Backholer; Steven Allender; Melanie Nichols; Cindy Needham; Kristy A Bolton; Miranda R Blake; Fletcher Stewart; Evelyn Close; Laura Alston

doi:10.3390/nu15234979

Diet-Related Disease Prevention in a Rural Australian Setting: Understanding Barriers, Enablers, and the Role of Rural Health Services in Supporting Changes in Local Rural Food Environments

Nutrients. 2023 Nov 30;15(23):4979. doi: 10.3390/nu15234979.

Authors

Nikita Wheaton¹, Emily Alston², Vincent L Versace¹, Michael Field^{1

2}, Anna Wong Shee^{1

3}, Jane Jacobs⁴, Kathryn Backholer⁴, Steven Allender⁴, Melanie Nichols⁴, Cindy Needham⁴, Kristy A Bolton^{4

5}, Miranda R Blake⁴, Fletcher Stewart², Evelyn Close², Laura Alston^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Deakin Rural Health, School of Medicine, Deakin University, Warnambool, VIC 3284, Australia.
² Research Unit, Colac Area Health, Colac, VIC 3250, Australia.
³ Grampians Health, Ballarat, VIC 3350, Australia.
⁴ Global Centre for Preventive Health and Nutrition (GLOBE), Institute for Health Transformation, Deakin University, Geelong, VIC 3220, Australia.
⁵ Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University, Geelong, VIC 3220, Australia.

Abstract

Bold and comprehensive action is needed to prevent diet-related diseases in rural areas, which includes improving food environments to enable healthier dietary practices. Rural health services are integral to the health of rural populations, yet their role in community disease prevention is not swell understood. This study sought to understand health service, local government, and food outlet stakeholders' perspectives on (1) the drivers of unhealthy retail environments in a rural setting; (2) the role of rural health services in supporting changes in local food environments; and to (3) identify characteristics of potential interventions. Two Group Model Building workshops were held with health service and local government leaders (n = 9), and interviews were conducted with local food outlet participants (n = 13). Key themes included 'enablers to healthier food environments', 'barriers to healthier food environments', 'Rural health services are a leading broker of knowledge for healthy food environments', and 'characteristics of desirable healthy food environment interventions.'. Rural health services can play a key role in addressing the current barriers to healthy food environments in rural areas. Effective promotion of healthier diets in rural populations will require consideration of key stakeholder perspectives and the development of further evidence on the role that rural health services can play in improving the healthiness of food environments.

Keywords: Australia; Victoria; food environments; nutrition; prevention; retail interventions; rural health.

MeSH terms

Australia
Diet
Food
Humans
Rural Health Services*
Rural Population*

Grants and funding

This work was funded by the Western Alliance Health Science Centre. L.A., V.V., A.W.S. and N.W. are supported by the Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training (RHMT) program. M.F. is supported by the Western Alliance Health Science Centre. M.N. is supported by the NHMRC Ideas Grant GNT2002234. K.B. is funded by a National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship (106716). S.A.’s research program receives funding support from VicHealth, NHMRC Partnership grants 1151572, 2023737, 2015440, NHMRC Ideas Grants 2002234, 2015540, NHMRC Global Alliance for Chronic Disease Scale-Up Hypertension Funding, Medical Research Future Fund Rapid Applied Research Translation, the Western Alliance, Barwon Health, the European Union, UK Medical Research Council, and the Cancer Council Victoria.