Climate and environmental change (CEC) are affecting food systems across the globe in myriad ways, yet there has historically been little focus on the role of CEC in influencing dietary patterns and consumer food choices. In this narrative review, we describe the global landscape of dietary patterns and consumer choice to set a baseline understanding of nutrition guidance and estimated food intake. Next, we consider trends in consumer choices across a pathway that includes consumer attitudes, knowledge, and preferences; food purchases and acquisition; food intake behaviors; and food waste. For each step on the pathway, we consider current evidence for how CEC is influencing choices, and identify key questions and data that need to be addressed to inform dietary guidance. We also use a socioecological model to show different levels of policy, community, interpersonal, and individual effects on food intake and their intersection with CEC. We find multifaceted mechanisms through which CEC is likely to influence consumer choices over time. Future dietary guidance should incorporate CEC context to ensure that recommendations are achievable for diverse populations in a food system increasingly likely to be affected by CEC.

Since we published our first article on health and nutrition science communication in the new age of AI (artificial intelligence), much has evolved. This technology is progressing faster and more profoundly than we imagined just last year! In the current article, we examine some recent real-time cases of AI communication “mishaps” and explore several specific cases of health science communication with the aid of AI algorithms. As usual, we offer, this time with the help of AI, additional guidance for those charged with delivering nutrition and other health science information to the public. And we offer some additional cautionary observations about the “brave new world” into which we and other science communication professionals are heading.

For weeks—for months, actually—all one could hear out of the scientific world, the financial world, and other worlds was speculation about a new kind of technology that would disrupt and revolutionize human progress: artificial intelligence (AI). A technology using computers to perform work previously thought to require intelligence would certainly affect human enterprise from menial tasks to scientific research projects to every conceivable form of communication. The question is: Exactly how will these enterprises be affected? And will the results be positive or negative? For communicators of food and health science, who are trying to translate science for the public and for policymakers, the answers are critical. The authors of this article, extending their decades-long series on public trust, understanding, and communication of science issues, explore the challenges and opportunities that AI is expected to present. As usual, they offer guidance to food and health science communicators in dealing with AI challenges and in seizing those opportunities.

In recent years, communicators have become increasingly concerned that their public messages have become vulnerable to a deteriorating information environment: sound scientific information is often drowned out by social media noise or overwhelmed by what seems to be a growing deluge of “misinformation” (ie, wrong or inaccurate information). Repeated surveys of public perception affirm that consumer trust in health, nutrition, and other science communications, although still relatively high, is on the decline, like public trust in other social institutions. The authors of this article, in their years-long series of Nutrition Today pieces, have offered frequent updated guidance to science communicators in getting their messages through, given the new electronic, Web-based gatekeepers of information. Yet, trust issues remain, and public understanding of health, nutrition, and other science remains in jeopardy. In the present article, the authors continue their “trust analysis’” and offer further insight into the ongoing challenges.

Nutrition and food science and other health science communicators have faced a number of significant challenges over the past several decades, as the information landscape has evolved. The growth of Web-based science communication sources and, especially, social media’s impact on information dissemination have thoroughly transformed what was once strictly the purview of science and health journals. To meet the changing challenges, the present authors have published a series of articles presenting guidance for communicators in navigating the evolving information environment. In response to a number of questions from colleagues about how to seek and evaluate sound scientific information and to address the growing online repository of dubious food and health recommendations, the authors are addressing in the present article some modern themes. In particular, the article focuses on communicators’ evolving needs: where to go for accurate science-based information—how to guide the public to sound health and nutrition information and also how consumers might vet information sites online and how the public can be encouraged to develop new critical science-consumption skills and practical skepticism in the face of competing “information” claims.

Issues of scientific misinformation/disinformation, fake news, credibility of sources, and, generally, communicating in a time of social incivility, uncertainty, and declining public trust have been much discussed recently in the literature. Challenges around science communication are numerous and seemingly pervasive. Lately, those charged with reporting science around food, nutrition, and health have grappled with a larger and growing challenge—the increasing polarization of society, both in the United States and globally. In its latest Trust Barometer, Edelman, the New York–based public relations and marketing consultancy firm, detailed various effects of polarization on public trust of science and other societal institutions. In this article, the authors discuss health and nutrition science communication in the context of audience polarization. They build on their previously articulated guidance for communicators in addressing the added challenges to effective messaging in a politically and culturally polarized information environment.

It is hardly a secret that the health, nutrition, and other science communication environment has over the past few years become ever-more problematic. The authors of the present article have repeatedly documented the challenges posed to public understanding of science by the rise of social media and other internet communication “tools” and the diminishing influence of such media as journals, legacy news organizations, and other traditional conduits of scientific information. Various remedies have been proposed for facilitating greater public appreciation and comprehension of science. In the current article, the authors offer a bold, if not surprising, new proposal: initiate or broaden public exposure to the true nature of the scientific method/process. They suggest that health and science communicators not hold back in extolling the noisy and highly contentious process by which hypotheses are explored and eventually accepted or rejected. If communicators, they argue, convince audiences of the messy, even argumentative, way in which science actually evolves, it may be easier to encourage a greater open-mindedness toward previously unpopular, even uncomprehended, dreaded, or despised, scientific ideas. The issue is of paramount importance, especially now, as keeping the public focus on science, not individual scientists, is critical.

In the several years since we last proposed in-depth analysis and guidance for health and nutrition communicators, in light of the evolving information environment, much has changed—mostly for the worse, for the more problematic. The communication landscape has become more challenging, public trust in health institutions seems to have experienced further shrinkage, and some of the old rules for disseminating consensus scientific information may need updating. In this article, we analyze recent events/conditions in the ongoing metamorphosis of the communication environment in the cyber age. Included are some observations from a 2022 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine workshop on best practices for nutrition communication, analysis of misinformation concerns, the effect of social media on information delivery, and some updated guidance for communicators.

The twin phenomena of scientific misinformation and disinformation have recently been the object of an intense discussion among communicators of nutrition, health, and other science information. Especially with the rapidly evolving social media ecosystem, issues of public trust in consensus science have increasingly concerned those professionals whose mission it is to convey truthful and credible information. For several years, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have been studying the “Science of Science Communication” and other aspects of public credulity in scientific findings, and recently, the National Academy of Medicine published a discussion article proposing strategies for combatting the spread of health misinformation—including the creation of source-vetting guidance to be enacted by the major social media platforms. In the present article, the authors, who for years have explored issues around public trust and new media communication of science, explore the Academy's proposals and offer their own guidance on reconciling public perceptions with “authoritative” health and other science communications.

When the authors, in an article 2 years ago, explored early communication lessons from COVID-19, it was thought that the world would likely have gotten past the pandemic by publication date. Now, nearly 2 years later, the virus continues to wreak public fear and seemingly confound policy makers, the health/medical community, and risk communicators about how to address the virus. It is time to take stock again of what has worked and what has made matters worse in communicating about severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2—in other words, what may have gone wrong and what seems to have gone right. In the present article, the authors review existing risk communication guidelines and offer suggestions for additions/revisions in light of the world's COVID-19 experience. Specifically, they discuss how communicators might mitigate the politicization of pandemic messages, the need for balancing effective messaging, potential harms to public well-being, risk/benefit analysis, and the necessity of what the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has called “radical transparency.”

The last 2 years have wrought profound changes in the science communication landscape, especially as it concerns health and related issues. In 2 previous articles, the present authors have analyzed risk and crisis communication in the COVID-19 environment—what mistakes may have been made and how communicators can improve message dissemination in future crisis situations. However, the effects of the past 2 years on current science communication do not end there. The recent enhanced focus on social media's possible role in spreading not only misinformation or disinformation but also actual harmful assaultive messaging has raised the communication stakes significantly. Given increasing public claims of widespread censorship and complaints about efforts to “manage” robust expression of both scientific and other ideas, communicators face unprecedented new challenges in their work. The present article offers perspective on the current state of affairs in health and science communications in historical context. The authors offer their guidance for delivering trustworthy information transparently.

The health and nutrition science communication literature is replete with articles about financial conflicts of interest. Relatively little appears concerning conflicts among scientists and communicators themselves—the opinions, perspectives, and biases that obstruct consensus. In recent years, researchers and communicators have spoken of the need for science collaborations in exploring such complex issues as obesity, food security, personalized nutrition, and others. But some experts have identified obstacles to cooperation and sought to encourage holistic approaches to achieving research and communication goals in health and nutrition science. In the present article, the authors explore collaboration obstacles and discuss ways health and nutrition science communications might embrace more comprehensive strategies to bring disparate scientific disciplines together and advance understanding.

With the evolving complexities of nutrition and health science communication posing challenges to those tasked with translating and delivering information to the public, there are increasing calls for openness—both at the research and research-communication levels. It has been widely accepted that openness is a pathway to increasing public trust in emerging nutrition and other health science. Yet, about one of the key components of openness, transparency, there has been relatively little detailed discussion in the literature; the concept of transparency in the communication of science has been especially opaque. In the present article, the authors explore what transparency might mean in the context of communication and what pitfalls or positive outcomes it may offer to public understanding of nutrition and other health science. They propose strategies for managing and enhancing the delivery of transparent information in a modern communication landscape full of landmines, with its foreshortened news cycles, multiplicity of sources, and social media outlets of varying reliability.

In recent years, nutrition, health, and other science communicators have noted a dramatic change among the disseminators, the purveyors of the information that is their stock in trade. Evolution of the information landscape has been dramatic as it morphs from traditional media—peer-reviewed print journals and science articles in newspapers, broadcast television, and radio—to more technologically modern media. The present authors have documented the passing of the “old guard” of health and science communication “gatekeepers,” as newer digitally based information increases—exponentially. However, although the traditional curation of information may have experienced a significant decrease, the authors argue that new gatekeepers have emerged to take on the task. The present article analyzes the transition of journal and other print editors, as well as academic and other traditionally educated scientists, to the new cyber curators of health and science news. The resulting implications for today's communicators are also explored.

Food, health, and other science communicators have, for years, been concerned about the public's trust in science—especially, with the fierce opposition to some believed-to-be-settled scientific consensus regarding vaccine safety, global climate change, the safety of food biotechnology, and assorted nutrition issues. Experts have struggled to understand why significant segments of the public have continued to resist consensus conclusions. The present article investigates the impact on science communications of a broader, decades-long, societal decline in public trust in most social institutions. The authors investigate the role of trust in the context of a culture-wide loss of confidence in the society's traditional gatekeepers and authority figures. They examine possible causes for the erosion of trust and explore a new heuristic approach, offering possible guidance for food and health communicators in taking account of the ever-more-challenging communication landscape.

With the nightmare memory of the 2019–2020 coronavirus plague still fresh in health communicators' minds, it may be time for some thoughtful reflection. Are there any useful lessons nutrition and food science communicators can take away from the early experiences of the public health community in talking about risk? In the present article, the authors review the long-confirmed rules of risk communication under crisis conditions; they analyze the practices followed and messages delivered in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, and they analyze the almost astonishing effect of these communications on the public's behavioral attitudes. Offered as well are some possible lessons for nutrition communicators going forward: for example, food communicators might gain increased understanding of the need for empathy in talking to their audiences and of the importance of crafting messages that cut through the clutter of limited or inaccurate information. They propose some enhanced guidelines to improve crisis communication lines—experts to consumers to experts—going forward.

Much has been written about the benefits—and challenges—of social media platforms in communicating health and nutrition science to the public. It has generally been assumed that cyber platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat, and similar businesses function, in effect, like communication tools, albeit with some susceptibility to misinformation and disinformation. Less attention has been paid to the power of the downside of these new communication tools, which may be far more vulnerable to misinformation and disinformation than previously believed. More strenuous communication strategies may need to be deployed in the ongoing effort to deliver credible and reliable health and nutrition information to consumers. The authors here explore the significant challenges posed, going forward, to health and nutrition communications, offering an enhanced response.

BACKGROUND:The US faces remarkable food and nutrition challenges. A new federal effort to strengthen and coordinate nutrition research could rapidly generate the evidence base needed to address these multiple national challenges. However, the relevant characteristics of such an effort have been uncertain.OBJECTIVES:Our aim was to provide an objective, informative summary of 1) the mounting diet-related health burdens facing our nation and corresponding economic, health equity, national security, and sustainability implications; 2) the current federal nutrition research landscape and existing mechanisms for its coordination; 3) the opportunities for and potential impact of new fundamental, clinical, public health, food and agricultural, and translational scientific discoveries; and 4) the various options for further strengthening and coordinating federal nutrition research, including corresponding advantages, disadvantages, and potential executive and legislative considerations.METHODS:We reviewed government and other published documents on federal nutrition research; held various discussions with expert groups, advocacy organizations, and scientific societies; and held in-person or phone meetings with >50 federal staff in executive and legislative roles, as well as with a variety of other stakeholders in academic, industry, and nongovernment organizations.RESULTS:Stark national nutrition challenges were identified. More Americans are sick than are healthy, largely from rising diet-related illnesses. These conditions create tremendous strains on productivity, health care costs, health disparities, government budgets, US economic competitiveness, and military readiness. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has further laid bare these strains, including food insecurity, major diet-related comorbidities for poor outcomes from COVID-19 such as diabetes, hypertension, and obesity, and insufficient surveillance on and coordination of our food system. More than 10 federal departments and agencies currently invest in critical nutrition research, yet with relatively flat investments over several decades. Coordination also remains suboptimal, documented by multiple governmental reports over 50 years. Greater harmonization and expansion of federal investment in nutrition science, not a silo-ing or rearrangement of existing investments, has tremendous potential to generate new discoveries to improve and sustain the health of all Americans. Two identified key strategies to achieve this were as follows: 1) a new authority for robust cross-governmental coordination of nutrition research and other nutrition-related policy and 2) strengthened authority, investment, and coordination for nutrition research within the NIH. These strategies were found to be complementary, together catalyzing important new science, partnerships, coordination, and returns on investment. Additional complementary actions to accelerate federal nutrition research were identified at the USDA.CONCLUSIONS:The need and opportunities for strengthened federal nutrition research are clear, with specific identified options to help create the new leadership, strategic planning, coordination, and investment the nation requires to address the multiple nutrition-related challenges and grasp the opportunities before us.

Nutrition and health communicators have, in the past, struggled with messaging around dietary guidance, weight management, and obesity. In recent months, a plethora of food safety crises has focused the attention of communicators on how best to deal with messages under conditions of crisis and high risk. Numerous cases of Salmonella, cyclosporiasis, Listeria, a deadly form of Escherichia coli, and other pathogenic outbreaks have raised consumers’ concern about the safety of the food they consume as well as about the US food system itself. In this article, the authors revisit well-established rules for communicating about scientific uncertainty and real or perceived health risks around food. They analyze some of the more serious communication challenges in the most recent romaine lettuce and other food safety scares, and they propose reasons for the ensuing public confusion. Finally, they offer suggestions on meeting the evolving challenges in the new digital information era, with its perpetual news deadlines.