Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Community Nutrition

Course Description

This course focuses on critical perspectives in community nutrition. It will consider ecological, political, and social approaches to community nutrition theory and interventions. Topics including community health assessment, sustainable food systems, Indigenous foodways, food justice, health equity, and food policy will be addressed. Critical perspectives such as political economy, food sovereignty, critical pedagogy and art-based inquiry will be used to analyze approaches to understand community nutrition programs and policy. Examples, mostly from Canada, will be used to highlight the complexity and tensions in community nutrition theory and practice in a variety of settings.

In this course, students will familiarize themselves with community and population level approaches to the assessment, planning, and implementation of nutrition programs and policies.  This course prepares our students for practice in various community and population-based settings.

Course Objectives

Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

1. Examine approaches to community nutrition with specific populations and in various settings.
2. Recognize the ways in which social determinants of health intersect community nutrition theory and practice.
3. Examine the tensions among various critical approaches to community nutrition.
4. Identify opportunities for and engage in for advocacy towards systems and policy change.

Methods of Assessment

Program Analysis	30%
Advocacy Paper	30%
Presentation	30%
Participation	10%