Christina Vogel

Overview

Christina is Deputy Director of the Centre for Food Policy, City University of London. She is a registered nutritionist and has worked in public health nutrition ~20 years in Australia and Europe. Christina's research aims to inform the implementation and evaluation of food-related policies and interventions which optimise population nutrition, reduce inequalities and protect our planet.

She leads a programme of research dedicated to improving population health and reducing inequalities through food policy and nutrition-based initiatives. Christina’s research group adopts a systems approach to investigating environmental, psychosocial and socioeconomic determinants of diet, particularly among women, young people and children, and tests interventions to improve poor diet. Community participation and public voices are integral to her research activities and development of policy recommendations.

Christina leads a number of major research grants from NIHR PHR, NIHR PRP and Wellcome Trust, including product placement trials with Iceland supermarket chain, pre-implementation evaluation of the UK Government’s Food (Promotions and Placement) legislation and national evaluation of the Government’s Healthy Start scheme in England. Christina has given evidence to the House of Lord’s Select Committee on Food, Poverty, Health and the Environment, and she is lead author of Chapter 2 of the WHO European Region’s report on obesity. Her work has received national and international press coverage and she is Deputy Editor of the scientific journal Public Health Nutrition.

Qualifications

• Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice, University of Southampton, United Kingdom, 2021
• Doctor in Philosophy - Title: The relative association between the local food environment, psychosocial factors and dietary inequalities, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom, 2014
• Graduate Diploma in Politics and Policy, Deakin University, Australia, 2014
• Bachelor of Science, University of Newcastle, Australia, 2003
• Bachelor of Health Science (Nutrition & Dietetics - honours), University of Newcastle, Australia, 2002

Employment

• Adjunct Professor of Food Policy, University of Southampton, Nov 2022 – present
• Professor of Food Policy and Deputy Director, Centre for Food Policy, City, University of London, Nov 2022 – present
• Associate Professor, University of Southampton, May 2019 – Oct 2022
• Senior Research Fellow, University of Southampton, Jan 2015 – Apr 2019
• Research Fellow, University of Southampton, Aug 2009 – Dec 2014

Teaching

I have considerable experience supervising student research projects. I have five current (Sarah Shaw, Preet Dhuria, Millie Bird, Ben Fisher, Naomi Fallon) and one completed (Monique Campbell) PhD students. I have also supervised student dissertations across a range of postgraduate and undergraduate courses including: MSc Food Policy, MSc Public Health, MSc Medical Statistics, MSc Health Sciences and BSc Geography.

I am module lead for FPM004 Food, Public Health and the Environment on the Master of Food Policy at City, University of London.

Previously, I was deputy module lead for Human Structure and Function on the Bachelor of Medicine foundation programme at the University of Southampton and also delivered lectures on Complex Interventions and Local Food Systems on the MSc Public Health programme. I co-developed a three module (17 units) Public Health Nutrition Intervention Management teaching package, as part of the EU funded project JobNut.

Current research projects:

Evaluation and co-creation to optimise use and benefits of the Healthy Start scheme (PI, £848,787 funded by NIHR Policy Research Programme, 2022-2024)

The government’s Healthy Start scheme aims to help families on low-incomes with young children by offering them money for fruit, vegetables, pulses, plain milk and baby formula. Approximately half of eligible families claim this money and there has been no national evaluation of this scheme. This study aims to: i) evaluate how using the Healthy Start subsidy influences food purchasing, diet and broader child outcomes; ii) identify factors driving Healthy Start use; and iii) co-create strategies to optimise the scheme’s impact. This 30-month project is structured into five interlinked workpackages and has been developed with families eligible for Healthy Start and project partners: Institute for Fiscal Studies, Southampton City Council, London Borough of Redbridge, St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester City Council, Tommy’s charity and the Food Foundation. Locally, high-priority solutions will be identified in our target communities and learnings shared with other local authorities. Nationally, new insights about the HS scheme could identify focal points for targeted interventions.



Nudging healthier dietary habits: evaluation of a supermarket placement strategy in the WRAPPED study (PI, £779,137 funded by NIHR Public Health Research, 2019-2023)

WRAPPED (Women’s Responses to Adjusted Product Placement and its Effects on Diet) is a natural experiment with a prospective matched controlled cluster design. The setting is a UK discount supermarket chain regularly used by disadvantaged families for their main shop. The evaluation is assessing the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of prominent positioning of an expanded fresh fruit and vegetable section on the purchasing patterns of households, store-level sales and the dietary quality of women and children. A detailed process evaluation is measuring intervention fidelity, mechanisms of impact and contextual factors including the incoming regulation to ban prominent placement of high fat, salt, sugar products in retail outlets.



Family Food Experience Study - London (PI, £1,003,769 funded by NIHR Public Health Research Programme, 2020-2023)

This study aims to produce guidance for local authorities on how they can adapt and augment their existing obesity plans to work more effectively and efficiently in reducing inequalities. The study will focus on 4-11 year olds because this is the time when children who grow up to become teenagers and adults with excess weight are most likely to gain unwanted weight. We will conduct the study in London, where a lot of initiatives to encourage children to eat better are in place and the levels of unhealthy weight between the wealthy and lower-income children differ the most. The study will assess the food habits of 700 families living in the highest and lowest income parts of London. Our researchers will listen to and travel, side by side with about 50 children and caregivers during their daily journeys to learn if and how existing initiatives might (or might not) be reaching them. Common themes from these ‘go-along’ interviews will be identified and matched to food environment exposures. The study will convene a ‘Caregiver Advisory Panel’ and a ‘Stakeholder Steering Group’ to consult with regularly throughout the duration of the study to ensure risks are managed, the study design is workable and findings are framed to appeal to local communities and enhance uptake among decision makers.



Testing the effects of food product placement changes on customers’ intended product purchases in the APPROVE study (co-PI, £132,717 funded by NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Wessex, 2019-2023)

The APPROVE (Assessing Product Placement Reactions Observed in women in a Virtual Environment) study is investigating how different product displays in supermarkets affect the attentions of women from disadvantaged backgrounds and whether healthier layouts could help women make better choices. Visual attention is being assessed with eye-tracking technologies and participants are asked to recall the products available and name those they would buy in a virtual shopping trip. Differences in visual attention and intended purchases according to healthfulness of the virtual supermarket layout and women’s socioeconomic position will be examined.



EACH-B - Engaging Adolescents in Changing Behaviour (researcher, funded by NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research, 2018-2023)

EACH-B is a cluster randomised controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention of three linked elements: i) professional development for teachers including training in communication skills to support health behaviour change; ii) the LifeLab educational module comprising in-school teaching of nine science lessons linked to the English National Curriculum and a practical day visit to the LifeLab facility; and iii) a personalised digital app that involves social support and game features to highlight unhealthy food environments, and promote eating better and being more active. The primary outcomes of the intervention are self-reported dietary quality and objectively measured physical activity (PA) levels, both assessed at baseline and at 12-month follow-up. The dietary outcome was developed specifically for this project using data from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey.

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