Integrating Sustainable Diets in Healthcare Organizations: A Qualitative Study Among Key Informants about Challenges and Promising Avenues

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to explore challenges and promising avenues for integrating sustainable diets into healthcare organizations. An exploratory descriptive qualitative study was conducted from May to November 2019 in the province of Quebec, Canada, using semi-structured interviews with 29 key informants from a variety of professions. The study identified that the main recommendation for integrating sustainable diets (SDs) is that a clear commitment from policymakers is needed, that public health officers are in a favorable position to promote SDs, that food services require assistance integrating SD principles, and that health professionals face significant barriers to integrating sustainability into dietary advice.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable diet
• public health
• dietitians
• food supply managers
• health professionals
• healthcare organizations
• qualitative study
• climate change
• greenhouse gas emissions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authorship

LGdesigned the study and obtained financial support. LG and LAVIdrafted the paper. LG, OB, GM, MPG and SD contributed to studydesign. All authors critically revised and approved the final versionof the article.

Ethical standards disclosure

This study was conducted in accordance with the guidelines laid downin the Declaration of Helsinki. All procedures involving researchstudy participants were approved the Research Ethics Committee ofUniversité Laval (MP-20-2020-4766). Written informed consent wasobtained from all subjects.

Financial support

This work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Researchunder grant IC123786 and the Canada Research Chair in Internalizationof Sustainability Practices and Organizational Accountability.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research [IC123786].