Our activities
PPH leads and facilitates collaboration across government, health authorities, and non-government sectors to:
- support food security programs
- influence changes in policies and practices to improve food security
- reduce food insecurity
- uphold Indigenous food sovereignty
PPH’s food security role started in 2005 to support the health authorities with implementation of a health promotion initiative called the Community Food Action Initiative (CFAI). PPH coordinated activities, program evaluation, developed resources, and collated evidence.
The scope of food security work now extends beyond the CFAI to address multiple strategies that impact food security as outlined in the Ministry of Health core public health program paper on food security. Examples of activities include:
- Collaborating with partners to better understand and support food security and Indigenous food sovereignty in rural, remote and Indigenous communities.
- Providing BC specific definitions for food security and food insecurity to inform actions internal and external to the health sector.
- Leading collaboration and initiatives that aim to increase knowledge and inform policy and practice related to climate change and food security.
- Hosting the BC Food Security Gateway and community of practice with a lens of justice and equity while providing access to food security resources and fostering the BC food security community.
- Amplifying Indigenous voices to guide and inform practice as Indigenous self determination and transmission of traditional knowledge are essential to adaptive action for food security and food sovereignty in BC.
- Collecting, analyzing, and reporting on various measures of food security in BC.
People’s physical and mental health and wellbeing are closely interconnected with the wellbeing of the environments in which they reside and connect to. Health is put at risk as climate change impacts local and global food systems and food security. Rising temperatures, increasing droughts and more frequent extreme weather events threaten to disrupt agricultural activities, locally harvested seafood, traditional Indigenous and non-Indigenous hunting, gathering and supply chains. There are implications to the variety and nutritional quality of food that is available, accessible and affordable which disproportionately impacts people living in remote indigenous and non indigenous communities.
The Food Security Program at the BCCDC is currently leading a project to learn more about these climate related impacts on food security in remote Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in BC. This will help inform future food security policy and programs.
The BC Food Security Gateway (the Gateway) consists of both a website and an active Community of Practice (CoP).
The Gateway website is meant to inform and link you to food security projects, initiatives, and organizations in British Columbia as well as publications, tools, guides, and news – so that you, too, can contribute to building food security in BC. The CoP was established to support, facilitate and celebrate the building of knowledge, competence and partnerships to address food security in BC.
The Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) manages the Gateway website in partnership with the Public Health Association of BC (PHABC).