Healthy Sustainable Diets ^†

Abstract

Climate change is one of the top threats to human health and strategies to mitigate climate change are essential. International research has shown that policies to shift dietary consumption away from foods with high green-house gas (GHG) emissions associated with their production may produce health and climate co-benefits. A multi-state life-table model was used to estimate the health (in quality adjusted life years, QALY), health system costs and equity impacts of several scenarios in the New Zealand population. GHG emissions that have been assigned to the foods consumed by New Zealanders in the 2008/09 Adult Nutrition Survey have been added to this model to estimate the climate co-benefits of these scenarios. This presentation will outline an optimised healthy, sustainable diet for New Zealanders and describe the potential health and climate impacts of this and other population-wide theoretical shifts in dietary intake. Modelling results of price policies that could be implemented in New Zealand to shift dietary intake towards more healthy and sustainable foods will also be presented. Having information on the health and climate co-benefits of dietary shifts, policies and interventions can provide justification for policy makers to implement policies that both improve the health of the population and help to mitigate climate change.