Consensus Building for Metrics of Nutrition Equity

Consensus Building for Metrics of Nutrition Equity

There is growing interest in identifying metrics to measure the complexity of food systems and their synergistic impacts. Within the field of community nutrition, a variety of metrics have been used to quantify impact such as food security. These metrics are persistently worse for racialized groups, people with very low levels of income, and households headed by women, and they do not adequately account for the underlying structural factors that contribute to racialized, classed, and gendered disparities in community nutrition outcomes. We investigated a broader set of food system metrics that may be antecedents to disrupt inequities in community nutrition outcomes, such food insecurity or access to food retail. We adapted a participatory approach focused on the co-creation of metrics by engaging knowledge brokers who are most proximate to both the problems emerging from the food system and potential solutions that are relevant for racialized urban communities.  We developed metrics for evaluating initiatives seeking to realize nutrition equity through community-driven changes led by people who identify as Black and/or Latino/a/x. 

This study seeks to gain consensus from experts on whether identified community-derived metrics can advance nutrition equity. This study will provide results to support the adaption of the metrics in nutrition related work.

What is ExpertLens?

To gain consensus on the nutrition equity metrics, we will be using a tool called “ExpertLens,” an online platform and methodology for conducting modified-Delphi studies. This methodology and delivery mechanism allows for:

• Engagement of large numbers of stakeholders on important issues.
• Elicitation of opinions of individuals with different types and levels of expertise.
• Minimizing the burden on participants by allowing them to participate at times convenient to them.
• Reduction of the negative consequences of group decision-making, such as "groupthink."
• Expediting data collection and analysis.
• Automatically determining what the group agrees on using the analytic approach described in the RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method (RAM) User’s Manual.
• Logically combine quantitative and qualitative data.

The Nourishing Power Network plans to implement the three-phase ExpertLens process, including two assessments and one online open forum, to gain consensus on the nutrition equity metrics. This process is tentatively planned for April-May 2025, with participant recruitment occurring in March 2025. The Nourishing Power Network will be working with the RAND Corporation to implement the ExpertLens data collection process with the goal of inviting about 100 people to engage in the three-part process.

The Nourishing Power Network recognizes tensions related to the use of the term “experts” in any effort related to knowledge creation and the power of ideas. We fully embrace an understanding of “experts” that includes people with multiple types of expertise based on their lived experience, life and natural history, relationships, scientific insights, Indigenous knowledge, and storytelling. Our process for creating the initial set of metrics for the ExpertLens process was grounded in the insights of community experts leading innovative food justice initiatives - rather than a systematic review of the literature or feedback from people not directly embedded in communities experiences the burdens of food system injustices. Similarly, the Metrics Consulting Core will include experts with a range of perspectives uniquely important for nutrition equity. The entire process of consensus building and validation of the nutrition equity metrics is designed to create convergence among different sets of experience with special emphasis on the expertise of people embedded within communities experiencing food system injustices.