Health, wellbeing and nutritional impacts after 2 years of free school meals in New Zealand
In 2020, a government-funded healthy school lunch program was introduced in a quarter of New Zealand schools, selected due to high levels of socio-economic barriers. This study, published in Health Promotion International, assesses the impact of the introduction of the school lunch program from family (whānau), student and school principal perspectives.
Promoting health in the digital environment: health policy experts' responses to on-demand delivery in Aotearoa New Zealand
Services offering on-demand delivery of unhealthy commodities, such as fast food, alcohol and smoking/vaping products have proliferated in recent years. It is well known that the built environment can be health promoting or harmful to health, but there has been less consideration of the digital environment. Increased availability and accessibility of these commodities may be associated with increased consumption, with harmful public health implications. Policy regulating the supply of these commodities was developed before the introduction of on-demand services and has not kept pace with the digital environment. This paper, published in Health Promotion International, reports on semi-structured interviews with health policy experts on the health harms of the uptake in on-demand delivery of food, alcohol and smoking/vaping products, along with their views on policies that might mitigate these harms.