Food insecurity (FI) is a significant risk factor in malnutrition which can lead to obesity and type 2 diabetes. The association of FI to undernutrition can additionally lead to impaired cognitive development in children. Nearly $100 billion is spent annually on federal nutrition programs yet FI still affects 1 in 8 American households pointing to the urgent need for the further refinement of our national/regional anti-hunger models. One notable and underutilized tool is the community food security assessment (CFA) which seeks to eliminate FI at the local level by improving food access throughout the community. A major limitation in knowledge about CFAs is the dearth of empirical studies of their effectiveness. The principal aim of this dissertation research was to statistically examine secondary data on U.S. counties where CFAs have been conducted and to determine whether they helped reduce individual FI over a two-year, post-test period. Repeated measures of ANOVA across the longitudinal time frame for n=66 counties revealed the main effect of FI was not statistically significant. A majority (56.9%) of 37 counties experienced a decrease in FI over the period. Linear regression found that unemployment was a significant influence in communities that experienced decreases in individual FI at the county level during the pre-test/post-test interval (β = .387 [.067], p<.01). This dissertation found that CFAs can be more effective in areas of higher unemployment as well as geographically where FI is initially higher, however further research is clearly needed in more communities over a longer time period. Also, the study suggests that proper development and structure of state and local-level food policy councils (FPCs) may lead CFAs to find better structure, funding and best practices to become more effective. Overlays prepared with ArcGIS mapping demonstrate that, in general, CFAs are not being performed in areas of highest FI when measured at the county level. The most important take-away from the visual mapping is the dearth of studies performed in the southeastern and southwestern regions of the country where county-level FI is higher, on average, than the rest of the country. These regions coincide with much of the Southern Black Belt and areas where Hispanic or Latino populations are most prevalent suggesting that communities in these regions may be able to benefit from the intervention.

Across the US, support is ever-growing for the local food movement. This growing trend promotes food security, supports farming families, ensures universal access to safe and healthy food products, enhances local economies, and encourages environmental and social well-being. People around the US are implementing sustainable local food systems as a means of meeting their individual community’s needs. While this movement is being popularized dramatically around the world, many cities and regions have yet to address it. This study reviews the existing literature on local food system models in an effort to answer the research question: What are the “ingredients” of a healthy local food system? The local food system of Owensboro, KY was analyzed via interviews with key players in its food system. In addition, experts in this field at the state level were also interviewed to understanding the functions of and the degree of support for local food systems in KY. Recommendations were then made for the city of Owensboro on how to further enhance its local food system into one of greater vibrancy and overall health.

Doctoral dissertation thesis deals with the issue of monetary integration within Europe. There are three main parts of it: the first one describes historical, political and also economic aspects of gradual monetary union formation, the second one analyses the impact of financial and economic crisis on the symmetry of Euro area development, and the last one deals with present debt crisis (and EU reaction on it). There are also involved possible future developments, when fiscal policy councils gained the most attention.

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Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:16:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Antonia Conceicao dos Santos.pdf: 1079839 bytes, checksum: a001ee3dd2c8cb060ec2e02252f8ef28 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-11-26 / The goal was characterize and analyze the council strategy comparing the mandates in order to identify the relations between the Council and the Health Movement of the East Zone of São Paulo, according to the importance of this in the genesis of that, and compare the conformation and the performance of the Council during the mandates studied, pointing the respective contributions to strength or attenuate alliances and policies in favor of the guarantee of the right to universal health, conceived as a public good. It was sought the study of the two managements that represents opposite political projects in order to understand how are processed the political relations between the government and civil society in different conjunctures. The hypothesis formulated was that the public policies Councils, generally, and the Health Councils, particularly, are in principle empty spaces that can be occupied in different ways and with different contents. Under this perspective, it is understood that the Local Health Council can be constituted in an instrument of effective democratic struggle for improvements and achievements in Health Policy, but, in other hand, can be reduced to an instrument of cooptation of the society section represented in it, in prejudice of the social control. Secondly. The section of the civil society represented in the Council tend to modify the profile of the social control and the surveillance, adopting posture support and acceptance of the mandates considered popular-democratic in which politically identified, in prejudice of their autonomy. The research is qualitative character and had as methodological procedures the document, bibliographic and empiric research through the gathering of testimonies of health counselors that represent the sections of users, workers and managers. The research followed the tensions and contradictions of the Local Health Council. It intended the analysis of the Council in the agenda, and contribute to the democratic improvement of this social control mechanism / O objeto desta dissertação é o exercício do Controle Social por meio do Conselho Municipal de Saúde de São Paulo, durante as gestões do prefeito Celso Pitta, do Partido Progressista Brasileiro, e da prefeita Marta Suplicy, do Partido dos Trabalhadores. O objetivo é caracterizar e analisar a estratégia conselhista, comparando as gestões, de modo a identificar as relações entre o Conselho e o Movimento de Saúde da Zona Leste, dada a importância deste na gênese daquele, e comparar as composições e o desempenho do Conselho nas gestões estudadas, apontando as respectivas contribuições para fortalecer ou diluir pactos e políticas em favor da garantia do direito universal à saúde, concebida como bem público. Busca-se estudar as duas gestões, representativas de projetos políticos oponentes, para entender como se processam as relações políticas entre o governo e a sociedade civil em conjunturas diferentes. A hipótese formulada é a de que os Conselhos de políticas públicas, em geral, e os Conselhos de Saúde, em particular, são, em princípio, espaços vazios que podem ser ocupados de diferentes formas e com distintos conteúdos. Sob essa perspectiva, entendese que o Conselho Municipal de Saúde pode constituir-se em instrumento de efetiva luta democrática por avanços e conquistas no âmbito da Política de Saúde, mas pode, por outro lado, reduzir-se a instrumento de cooptação dos segmentos da sociedade ali representados, em prejuízo do controle social. Em contrapartida, os segmentos da sociedade civil representados no Conselho tendem a alterar o perfil do controle social e da fiscalização, adotando posturas de apoio e referendo às gestões consideradas democrático-populares com as quais politicamente se identificam, em prejuízo de sua autonomia. A pesquisa é de caráter qualitativo e tem como procedimentos metodológicos a pesquisa documental, bibliográfica e empírica, mediante a coleta de depoimentos de conselheiros de saúde representantes dos segmentos dos usuários, trabalhadores e gestores. O estudo adota como fio condutor as tensões e contradições do Conselho Municipal de Saúde. Busca não só a análise do Conselho em pauta, mas também contribuir para o aprimoramento democrático desse mecanismo de controle social