Public sector policies and actions

How much progress have (national, provincial, territorial) governments made towards good practices in improving food environments and implementing obesity and non-communicable diseases prevention policies and actions?


This module aims to monitor current government policies at the national, provincial and territorial levels that influence the food environment using the Healthy Food Environment Policy Index (Food-EPI).

Food- EPI is a tool and process developed by the global INFORMAS to assess Canadian food environment policies compared to best practices within two primary components: 1) policy and 2) infrastructure support. Within these components, 7 policy ‘domains’ (food composition, food labelling, food marketing, food provision, food retail, food prices, and food trade and investment) and 6 infrastructure support ‘domains’ (leadership, governance, monitoring and intelligence, funding and resources, platforms for interaction, and health-in-all-policies) are assessed, using a set of 47 ‘good practice indicators’ for specific policy areas relevant to each domain. For each indicator, a set of international benchmark examples have been compiled to illustrate promising practices whereby governments (at any level) have taken action or implemented policy. A more detailed description of the tool is available here.

Publications related to this module

Vanderlee, L, Goorang, S, Karbasy, K, Vandevijvere, S, L'Abbé, MR. Policies to Create Healthier Food Environments in Canada: Experts' Evaluation and Prioritized Actions Using the Healthy Food Environment Policy Index (Food-EPI). Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019;16(22). 

Food-EPI Canada 2017

Final reports

Summary Report (Federal, Provincial and Territorial results)
Executive Summary

Provincial and Territorial Reports

Alberta
British Columbia
Manitoba
New Brunswick
Newfoundland & Labrador
Northwest Territories
Nova Scotia
Ontario
Prince Edward Island
Quebec
Saskatchewan
Yukon

Evidence documents
Documents summarizing food environment policies and verified to the extent possible by relevant government stakeholders and policy experts

Canada
Alberta 
British Columbia 
Manitoba 
New Brunswick
Newfoundland & Labrador 
Northwest Territories
Nova Scotia 
Ontario
Prince Edward Island
Quebec
Saskatchewan
Yukon

Module leader

Lana Vanderlee