Getting Pacific Health Done - Future Food that Works
Today many from our Pacific communities’ face ill-health or death due to the food we eat and the food system. This special issue of Pacific Health, Volume 9, 2026, explores the role of food in shaping health, wellbeing, and community futures across Pacific contexts. As researchers, we are interested in food for its effects on health, as a matter of nutrition, and diet, but also as a social, cultural, economic, and relational issue that is closely connected to equity, identity, family and community life, affordability, access, and wider systems of change.
This special issue aims to lalanga (weave) diverse forms of scholarship and reflection across research, practice, and community settings. While grounded in Pacific health, it welcomes interdisciplinary contributions from related fields such as food studies, hospitality, regenerative environments, community development, youth studies, and public health. We are particularly interested in work that engages with lived experience, youth and whānau perspectives, community-led approaches, intergenerational wellbeing, and future-oriented thinking.
Relevant topics may include food environments, food access and affordability, food insecurity, food practices within households and communities, culturally grounded or community-led initiatives, participatory and co-designed approaches, digital and social media influences, and the policy, governance, or structural conditions that shape food and health. We also welcome submissions that consider new directions for partnership, systems change, and practical responses to contemporary challenges.
We welcome a range of submission types, including empirical research articles, qualitative and mixed-methods studies, community-based case studies, policy and practice reflections, indigenous methodological papers, and commentary or agenda-setting pieces. We especially encourage submissions from emerging Pacific researchers and students.
With this special issue, we hope to foster conversation about food as a significant and multifaceted issue in Pacific health and wellbeing, and to support research and reflection that can contribute to more equitable, community-relevant, and future-facing responses.
Special Issue Editors - Associate Professor Radilaite Cammock and Dr Alvina Pauuvale
