Nutrition, Environment, and Health: Diet Patterns, Environmental Exposures, and Disease

Recent advances in nutritional epidemiology have underscored the complex interplay between dietary patterns, environmental exposures, and human health. While nutrition and environment have long been studied as independent contributors to chronic disease risk, contemporary evidence increasingly points to their interactions as critical determinants in shaping health outcomes, including within combined food environments that span physical, social, and digital contexts. Key questions persist regarding how dietary behaviours modify, mediate, or interact with environmental stressors such as air pollution, heavy metals, endocrine disruptors, and climate-related hazards, as well as with food-environment factors such as food availability, marketing, pricing, and online platforms. The state of the field is marked by the emergence of innovative exposure assessment methodologies, improved analytical techniques, and a growing focus on life-course and intergenerational health impacts. However, knowledge gaps remain regarding the combined and cumulative effects of these exposures, challenges in harmonizing diverse data sources, and the translation of epidemiological findings into equitable and effective public health interventions. Ongoing debates surround the methodological rigor required to disentangle complex causality and the need for frameworks that successfully integrate nutritional and environmental epidemiology.This Research Topic aims to foster interdisciplinary research that clarifies how dietary patterns and environmental exposures together influence health across populations and life stages, including within combined food environments spanning physical, social, and digital contexts. The central goal is to advance the understanding of the mechanisms, pathways, and contextual factors underlying diet–environment interactions—encompassing both environmental stressors (e.g., air pollution, heavy metals, endocrine disruptors, and climate-related hazards) and food-environment exposures (e.g., availability, affordability, marketing, and platform design)—to provide robust epidemiologic evidence to inform prevention strategies and policy interventions. Specific questions to be explored include: How do combined dietary and environmental exposures contribute to disease risk? How do combined food environments shape dietary behaviours and modify, mediate, or interact with environmental stressors across settings and life stages? What statistical and methodological innovations are needed to enhance causal inference in this context? How can life-course and equity considerations be incorporated into research and translation? By convening diverse perspectives, the Research Topic will illuminate opportunities for public health action at the intersection of nutrition, the environment, and food environments.The scope of this Research Topic encompasses original research, methodological developments, systematic reviews, and policy analyses focused on dietary and environmental determinants of health in epidemiologic settings. Submissions may address any stage of the life course, and both individual- and population-level approaches are welcome. To gather further insights in the boundaries between nutrition, environment, and health, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:o Conceptual frameworks and methodological innovations in studying diet-environment-disease pathwayso Empirical evidence on interactions between dietary patterns and environmental exposures in chronic disease etiologyo Life-course and intergenerational perspectives on nutrition and environment interactionso Nutritional epidemiology in the context of food systems, climate change, and planetary healtho Data integration, harmonization, and the use of omics and digital tools in exposure assessment o Policy translation, intervention strategies, and equity considerations in the implementation of research findingso Urbanisation, sustainable diets, and their impacts on nutritional status across life stageso Food noise and its role in influencing dietary decision-making o Digital food environments, including online platforms and their effects on eating behaviourso Food environments surrounding international students and associated nutritional changes Topic editors: Sonia Muñoz, Devaki Gokhale Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/78048/nutrition-environment-and-health-diet-patterns-environmental-exposures-and-disease