From Research to Community Action: Global CFaH Core Methods Paper Published

The Global CFaH project's core methods paper, titled “Responding to the intersecting challenges of non-communicable diseases, food insecurity, and climate change in small island states: the Global Community Food and Health Project,” has been published in the Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems Journal.

Published on May 26, 2026, the paper outlines the rationale, settings, methodology and theories of change guiding Global CFaH’s work across four small island settings: Fiji, Palawan in the Philippines, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

 

Click here to read the full paper: "Responding to the intersecting challenges of non-communicable diseases, food insecurity, and climate change in small island states"

 

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Small island states across several settings are increasingly reliant on imported, ultra-processed foods, many of which are of low nutritional quality. This shift is linked to declining local food production and a growing burden of nutrition-related non-communicable diseases. At the same time, climate change is placing additional pressure on local agriculture, food access and community resilience. The Global CFaH project is responding to these intersecting challenges through interventions with communities, local partners, researchers and stakeholders to explore how community-based food production, guided by agroecological principles, can support healthier diets, stronger food security and more sustainable food systems. The project interrogates how increased community-based food production can improve household diet, nutrition and food security while helping to reduce the burden of nutrition-related diseases. It also examines the environmental, economic and social sustainability of this approach.

 

At the centre of the project is a participatory approach. Global CFaH uses food system mapping, stakeholder engagement and local “Living Labs” to co-create interventions that respond to the realities of each setting. These interventions include backyard gardening, climate-resilient food production, healthy cooking, food preservation, farmer support, local food marketing and community education. The core methods paper describes how the project is evaluating these interventions through mixed methods, including household diet surveys, agroecology performance tools, qualitative discussions, participant engagement and modelling of longer-term health, economic and ecological impacts.

 

Across the four settings, the interventions have been adapted to local priorities:

• Fiji: Organic food production, climate-resilient gardens, cooking with home produce and food preservation
• Palawan, Philippines: Agroecological crop cultivation, human nutrition, healthy cooking, food preservation and household follow-up visits
• St Lucia: Cooking demonstrations, nutrition information on local crops, farmer capacity-building and community workshops
• St Vincent and the Grenadines: Backyard garden recovery after Hurricane Beryl, garden-bed support, chicken coops and household nutrition workshops

 

 

 

The publication of this core methods paper marks an important milestone for the project, documenting Global CFaH’s interdisciplinary and community-centred approach to food systems transformation. It also contributes to a growing evidence base on how small island settings can respond to the combined pressures of food insecurity, climate change and nutrition-related disease. Learnings from the interventions across each setting will help identify what works, where trade-offs exist, and how community ownership can support longer-term sustainable change.

 

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