Access to nutritious and culturally appropriate food is a key contributor to community health, and retail food environments (stores and restaurants) are an important component of food access. This talk will report on results from the ‘Food Retail Environments Shaping Health – Intervention Toolkit’ (FRESH-IT) project. We will discuss geographic access to food stores across the Northern region, as well as the cost, availability and quality of common food items in the Northwest corridor of Houston to Terrace. A key focus of the presentation will be on locally-driven responses to improve food access shared by store-owners, community groups and municipal and health planners in response to food environment assessment data.
Flo Sheppard is the Chief Population Health Dietitian with Northern Health Authority. Rebecca Hasdell is a PhD candidate at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (University of Toronto), and project co-lead for FRESH-IT.

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