Dietary Policies and Programs: Moving Beyond Efficacy and Into “Real-World” Settings

Abstract

Purpose: Dietary behaviors are key modifiable risk factors in averting cardiovascular disease (CVD), the leading cause of morbidity, mortality, and disability in the United States. Before investing in adoption and implementation, community-based organizations, public health practitioners, and policymakers-often working with limited resources-need to compare the population health impacts of different food policies and programs to determine priorities, build capacity, and maximize resources. Numerous reports, reviews, and policy briefs have synthesized across evidence-based policies and programs to make recommendations, but few have made a deep acknowledgment that dietary policies and programs are not implemented in a vacuum, and that ''real-world'' settings are complex, multifaceted and dynamic. Methods: A narrative review was conducted of currently recommended evidence-based approaches to improving dietary behaviors, to describe and characterize applied and practical factors for consideration when adopting and implementing these dietary policies and programs across diverse settings. Results: From the narrative review, six key considerations emerged to guide community-based organizations, public health practitioners, and policymakers on moving from the evidence base, toward implementation in local and community settings. Conclusions: Considerations of ''real-world'' contextual factors are necessary and important when adopting and selecting evidence-based policies and programs to improve dietary behaviors and ultimately improve CVD outcomes. Promising approaches include those that apply community-partnered research and systems science to examine the equitable implementation of evidence-based dietary policies and programs.

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