Governing evidence use in the nutrition policy process: evidence and lessons from the 2020 Canada food guide

Isaac Weldon and Justin Parkhurst

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Nutrition guideline development is traditionally seen as a mechanism by which evidence is used to inform policy decisions. However, applying evidence in policy is a decidedly complex and politically embedded process, with no single universally agreed-upon body of evidence on which to base decisions, and multiple social concerns to address. Rather than simply calling for "evidence-based policy," an alternative is to look at the governing features of the evidence use system and reflect on what constitutes improved evidence use from a range of explicitly identified normative concerns. This study evaluated the use of evidence within the Canada Food Guide policy process by applying concepts of the "good governance of evidence" - an approach that incorporates multiple normative principles of scientific and democratic best practice to consider the structure and functioning of evidence advisory systems. The findings indicated that institutionalizing a process for evidence use grounded in democratic and scientific principles can improve evidence use in nutrition policy making.

Keywords: governing evidence use; improving evidence use; nutrition policy; policy process; Canada Food Guide (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 N0 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 12 pages
Date: 2022-03-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Nutrition Reviews, 1, March, 2022, 80(3), pp. 467 – 478. ISSN: 0029-6643

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/112430/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:112430

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().