Measurement of climate change-related food (in)security and food sovereignty in Canada’s northern communities and the circumpolar region: a scoping review protocol

Abstract

Introduction

Climate change impacts the circumpolar region (including northern Canada) at a greater magnitude than other parts of the world. This affects food (in)security as well as food sovereignty. This scoping review aims to map the methods of measuring food (in)security and food sovereignty across northern Canada and the circumpolar region in support of the Yukon Government’s climate change adaptation strategy.

Methods and analysis

We will adhere to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews, and work will be conducted according to the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) manual chapter on scoping reviews. Academic librarians develop the academic literature and grey literature search strategies, and the search strategies are further revised through iterative stages of peer review. The search strategy includes 7 academic literature databases, 11 grey literature databases, over 50 websites and the University of Toronto Libraries catalogue. Covidence, an evidence synthesis software, will be used for screening and extraction. The extraction chart will be developed and piloted by our team. A minimum of two reviewers will conduct screening, and conflicts will be resolved through discussion. Data will be extracted by one reviewer and verified by a second. Conflicts will be resolved through discussion or by a third reviewer.

Ethics and dissemination

This project does not require ethical approval as it is secondary research; data will be extracted from published academic research papers, dissertations, and publicly available reports and documents. Our dissemination plan includes presentations at conferences, submission to international peer-reviewed journals and a workshop on the search strategies.

STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY.

• Comprehensive academic and grey literature search strategies capture research from communities, governments and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that may not have been published in academic venues.

• Seven academic librarian peer reviewers, including an expert on Indigenous Health Librarianship and an academic librarian at Yukon University.

• Grey literature will be searched through three approaches: targeted website searching, search engine searching (Google, Google Custom Searches) and querying databases of grey literature.

• We do not have a peer reviewer who identifies as Indigenous.

• This study only includes sources in the English language.

Introduction

Multiple voices have called attention to the disparate impact of climate change in the North, in particular, impacts on food security and food sovereignty.^{1 2} In Northern Canada, there is an urgency for climate change adaptation as there are severe and potentially irreversible impacts to landscapes and ecosystems, with profound effects on harvest (plant and animal).³ In the following sections of the Introduction, we will briefly review the concepts of food in(security) and food sovereignty, how they are measured and highlight the impact of climate change on these concepts in a northern context.

Food (in)security

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) states that food security exists, ‘when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life’.⁴ Therefore, food insecurity may be understood as the absence of one or more of the above conditions, at any point in time.⁵ Food insecurity and security exist on a continuum and vary over time; as this is a dynamic and broad concept, the continuum is represented in this scoping review with the term ‘food (in)security’.

There are four dimensions in the FAO definition of food (in)security that are organised hierarchically.^{6 7} ‘Availability’ addresses the supply side of food (in)security, that there are enough food resources within reasonable proximity.⁸ Food production is usually measured at the geographical region level.⁹ Food must first be available prior to being accessed. The ‘access’ dimension of the FAO definition addresses the issue of adequate financial resources or trade resources to obtain food and requires that food is physically accessible, for example, infrastructure.⁸ This dimension is normally assessed at the household or individual level.⁹ This is the most measured dimension^{6 9} and the Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM) is the most common scale.⁶

Following access is the dimension of ‘utilisation’, which ensures that food is sufficient in energy and essential nutrients for biological use. This dimension includes food preparation, storage and sanitation.⁸ This dimension is usually measured at the individual level.⁹ Finally, ‘stability’ is the fourth dimension and it refers to each of the previous dimensions’ consistency over time.⁸ The first three dimensions must be fulfilled and stable over time to reach food security.⁹ These dimensions are measured differently depending on the food system: market, local or traditional.¹

Measurement of food (in)security

Food (in)security can be measured at the national, regional, household or individual levels.^{5 8 10} Indicators can reflect any of the four food (in)security dimensions. At the national level or regional level, ‘access’ indicators reflect infrastructure, national statistics on employment; an example of a national availability indicator is agricultural yield remaining for domestic use or a food balance sheet.^{5 8} At the household level, an example of an indicator (reflecting access) would be total household income and expenditure.⁸ Indicator examples at the individual level include anthropometric measures such as height, weight and BMI—these are reflective of the utilisation dimension.⁸

Surveys are also used for food (in)security measurement. The Canadian Community Health Survey has included a food security component since 2005: the HFSSM.¹¹ However, this survey does not provide a complete picture as the food security component is not mandatory, and several population groups (including First Nations on reserves) are excluded.¹² The HFSSM focuses on financial constraints as the cause of food insecurity, only looks at the access dimension⁶ and only collects data on the year prior to the survey.^{7 11} Canada recently incorporated the HFSSM in the Canadian Income Survey (CIS) which includes a food insecurity indicator, with the aim of gathering food insecurity data on an annual basis.¹³ The most recent published CIS food insecurity data from the Territories were collected in 2021, and published in June 2023.¹⁴

A valid and reliable instrument that measures all four dimensions at the population, household and individual levels does not exist.⁶ The issue of measurement is exacerbated in the circumpolar region as the population draws from multiple food systems—market, local and traditional (wild) foods.¹⁵ Furthermore, disaggregated data have the potential to refine and characterise with more precision the prevalence of food (in)security among different demographic groups; for example, women and children may be more susceptible to food security disruptions in the North.¹⁶ In this scoping review, we will comprehensively search for, and extract data on, how climate change-related food (in)security has been measured in northern Canada and the circumpolar region and to illuminate gaps in research that could inform policy, practice and future research.

Food sovereignty and measurement

For Indigenous Peoples, food security and food sovereignty are deeply interrelated.¹ Food sovereignty is defined as the ability and the right of people ‘to define their own policies and strategies for sustainable production, distribution and consumption of food that guarantee the right to food for the entire population’.¹⁷ Food sovereignty encompasses culture, identity, human rights and self-determination.^{1 18 19} As measures for food sovereignty are rooted in the community or region’s culture, the indicators are highly contextual.²⁰ Researchers call for alternate food security measurement approaches to be developed that honour cultural values and Indigenous knowledge and include a section pertaining to the consumption of traditional foods.^{15 21}

Climate change and food (in)security measurement

According to Canada’s Changing Climate Report,² published in 2019, the mean winter temperature in northern Canada (north of 60⁰ latitude) has increased by 4.3°C since 1948. The annual mean temperature increase in northern Canada (from 1948 to 2016) is close to three times the global mean warming rate.² The challenges of this increase include weather changes that affect conditions on the land, which in turn affect access and availability of traditional foods such as berries, salmon, caribou and moose, as well as crop yields of local foods. Harvesting from the land requires experience and knowledge based on the stability and predictability of the environment.²²

Climate change also affects infrastructure through permafrost thaw and extreme weather that compromises transport of market and local foods.²³ Market foods are foods that may be local or foods transported from other distribution centres. Local foods are locally grown foods sold in the local area.¹ Climate change additionally affects infrastructure and logistics of the food system,²⁴ as well as pricing of foods.^{1 24}

There is a lack of research and work in measurement of climate change-related food (in)security or food sovereignty.^{21 25} Recent research in Yukon food security and food sovereignty is from a systems perspective and is not about measurement of food (in)security.²⁶ Food security measures or surveillance directly related to climate change are limited. There is the possibility of using climate information and food security data to conduct correlation analyses but this work is still nascent.²⁵

Food insecurity is significantly greater in northern Canada than the national average. In the 2017–2018 Canadian Community Health Survey, 12.7% of Canadian households experienced some level of food insecurity during the previous year.¹² This measure was 16.9% in Yukon, 21.6% in Northwest Territories (NWT) and 57% in Nunavut (NU). Household food security is more prevalent in households with children. In Yukon, 4.3% of households experienced marginal food insecurity, 7.4% moderate food insecurity and 5.1% severe food insecurity. Severe food insecurity is the highest in the three territories, with NWT at 5.0% and NU at 23.7%.¹²

Boundaries of northern Canada and the circumpolar region

An organising strategy in measuring and observing population health of circumpolar peoples has been to define the boundaries of ‘Arctic’ or ‘circumpolar’ by political or administrative divisions (eg, a country or an administrative subset such as a province or territory) rather than geophysical or climatic. This is because health data are usually collected according to political or administrative boundaries.¹⁰ Young et al¹⁰ have identified 27 northernmost regions of 8 member states of the Arctic Council, of which Canada is a member and the Territories compose Canada’s nominal regions (table 1).

Table 1. The 27 northern regions of the 8 Arctic states, adapted from Young et al¹⁰.

Country	Region
USA	Alaska
Canada	Yukon
	Northwest Territories
	Nunavut
Denmark	Greenland
	Faroe Islands
Iceland
Norway	Nordland
	Troms
	Finnmark
Sweden	Västerbotten
	Norrbotten
Finland	Oulu
	Lappi
Russian Federation	Murmansk Oblast
	Kareliya Republic
	Arkhangelsk Oblast
	Nenets Autonomous Okrug
	Komi Republic
	Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug
	Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug
	Taymyr Autonomous Okrug
	Evenkia Autonomous Okrug
	Sakha Republic
	Magadan Oblast
	Koryak Autonomous Okrug
	Chukotka Autonomous Okrug

Other evidence syntheses and justification of this scoping review

Preliminary searches were conducted for existing knowledge syntheses. Searches were conducted between 10 December 2021 and 5 January 2022. Academic databases included TRIP Pro, MEDLINE (Ovid), Epistemonikos and Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Evidence Synthesis. Grey literature electronic resources included Federal Science Libraries Network, GALLOP Portal, Policy Commons, PAIS Index, ProQuest, ArcticHealth.org, Arctic Science and Technology Information System, Google, IGO Google Custom Search, Canadian Government Documents Google Custom Search, Open Polar, EPA HERO.

We found four evidence syntheses that were relevant but did not significantly overlap the objectives of this scoping review.^{6 7 9 27} Marques et al²⁷ reviewed all food (in)security tools in epidemiological studies with no geographical limits, but only in three databases in June 2011: MedLine, LILACS and SciELO (the latter two are Latin American databases). Ashby et al⁶ reviewed measurement of food (in)security across all developed countries. They only looked for multi-item tools for food (in)security and only in developed countries (OECD member countries). Both Marques et al²⁷ and Ashby et al⁶ review food (in)security measurement, however, the most recent review completed their searches in June 2014. McKay et al⁷ present a systematic review of food (in)security measurement in Australia only. Carrillo-Álvarez et al⁹ present the most recent evidence synthesis on food (in)security measurement; however, like the other three, food sovereignty is not included.

Review objective

The objective of this scoping review is to explore the measurement of climate change-related food (in)security and food sovereignty in Canada’s northern communities and the circumpolar region and to describe the breadth of indicators, instruments and methods and highlight any gaps arising from these practices.

Review questions

1. How are climate change-related food (in)security and food sovereignty measured in Canada’s northern communities and the circumpolar region?

2. What are the methods used?

   1. What data are collected?

   2. How are the data collected and at what frequency?

   3. How are data stored?

   4. How are the data analysed?

   5. How are the findings used?

3. What are the instruments used and what are the characteristics of the instrument?

4. What are the purposes of data collection?

5. What are the gaps in the available literature?

   1. What types of gaps are present: geographical, indicator coverage (dimensions of food security), food sovereignty, subpopulation group, specific kinds of climate change effects?

   2. What populations and subpopulations are covered?

   3. Who is doing the work?

   4. Where are the data held and how are they accessed?

Search strategy

Food, culture, human health and ecosystem health are interrelated.¹⁶ Canada is part of the Arctic (circumpolar region) and has been disproportionately impacted by climate change; annual average temperature has increased at almost twice the rate of the rest of the world, with some variations across the Arctic region.^{28 29} Our search will encompass the entire circumpolar region.

Our geographical terms are the boundary within Young et al’s¹⁰ table (table 1) of the circumpolar region; we will also include all the communities eligible under Nutrition North Canada’s programme, as they are considered to be isolated northern communities. NWT and NU have many fly-in communities (only accessible by air travel for most of the year), so there is a difference in the dimension of access, but climate change-related availability of wild food may be similar due to being in the circumpolar region.

There are extensive geographical keywords for Canada’s northern communities as this scoping review is a key deliverable in response to one of the actions in Our Clean Future: A Yukon strategy for climate change, energy and a green economy.³⁰ The Government of Yukon action is to ‘Analyse existing information on food insecurity in Yukon by 2023 to inform the development of a system to gather food insecurity data into the future’.

In Canada, Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately impacted by food (in)security and a strong body of research reflects how Indigenous Peoples view their food (in)security and food sovereignty as inter-related: ‘Regardless of their numbers or share of the total regional population, it is true that indigenous people experience substantial health disparities relative to other populations in most regions’.³¹ Our search strategy includes keywords encompassing both food (in)security and food sovereignty, as well as keywords to create a more sensitive search for Indigenous sources across the circumpolar region.

In the database searches, some colonialist terms are chosen which once named Indigenous groups and lands. The authors recognise the importance of critical acknowledgement of these terms as outdated and oppressive. In research of this kind, such terms will sometimes be necessary to conduct robust searches into past literature. The authors advocate for transparency in such practices.

Inclusion criteria

We are using the Population, Context, Concept framework as recommended by the JBI Manual chapter for scoping reviews.³² Our population includes all people and communities experiencing climate change-related food (in)security and food sovereignty (table 2). We are excluding research that is not explicitly climate change-related, as there are several existing evidence syntheses that focus on food security and/or food sovereignty in the circumpolar region.33,36 For included studies, climate change will be the a priori context, and food security and/or food sovereignty measured in relation to that context. Due to the narrow parameters of this scoping review, we will build comprehensive academic and grey literature search strategies to enhance the sensitivity of the search.

Table 2. Inclusion criteria.

Element	Inclusion criteria
Population	People or populations (including communities of different sizes) that experience climate change-related food (in)security and food sovereignty in Canada’s northern communities and the circumpolar region.
Concept	Measurement: Empirical (quantitative or qualitative or mixed) methods to quantify, describe and understand the magnitude, breadth and experience of climate change-related food (in)security and food sovereignty from a population and public health perspective. Studies using Western knowledge systems or Indigenous/traditional knowledge systems are included.
Context	Young et al10 have identified 27 northernmost regions of 8 member states of the Arctic Council as the circumpolar north for investigating population and public health topics. Furthermore, we are including all the Nutrition North Canada (NNC) communities. NNC communities are the exception outside of Young et al’s10 regions. The NNC includes 122 communities; 76 are in provinces (south of 60th parallel).

The concept is measurement—how are climate change-related food (in)security and—food sovereignty measured. Regarding Context, following Young³¹ and Young et al,¹⁰ we recognise that it is not optimal to use geographical boundaries to describe included participants. Rather, a nuanced administrative-level inclusion at the community level is needed. We achieve that with political-administrative, community name, tribal, regional and language-based hedges for regions with a high proportion of Indigenous people in order to increase sensitivity.

Inclusion criteria by type of source are as follows: papers from peer-reviewed journals or government reports, that are primary research or methodology on developing, testing or evaluating a tool. Dissertations, book chapters and peer-reviewed conference papers are also included.

Methods

This scoping review project will be conducted in accordance with the JBI) methodology for scoping reviews,³² and we will adhere to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines with the Scoping Review Extension. We are registered on Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/XQFUA).

Academic literature search strategy

Following an initial search of existing knowledge syntheses, these documents were scanned for keywords, in addition to using existing hedges (online supplemental file 1). Academic databases to be searched include Web of Science, SCOPUS, Embase, MedLine, CINAHL, Geobase and CAB. We begin initial searches in MedLine, establishing the baseline parameters (eg, search field codes) for further strategies. The search strategy, including all identified keywords and index terms (when possible), is adapted for each included database and/or information source.

We will not exclude based on language at the search phase, however, only English language sources will be screened. We will include all languages to be able to quantify what is excluded prior to screening. Furthermore, we will not limit by publication date (see online supplemental file 2 for search results).

Grey literature search strategy

Grey literature will be searched through three approaches: targeted website searching, search engine searching (Google, Google Custom Searches) and querying databases of grey literature (see online supplemental file 1). Websites and grey databases will be selected through expert consultations and mapping of informational outputs of interested stakeholder organisations and governmental entities with jurisdictional oversight of relevant policy areas within our geographical scope. Our academic search string will be adapted to conform to character and syntactical limitations of grey resources (see online supplemental file 3 for grey literature search results).

Handsearching

Handsearching will be conducted in peer-reviewed journals only. After level 1 screening, included results will be sorted by journal frequency. We will ask two experts to confirm those are the top five journals that publish research in circumpolar health. Then, we will handsearch the Table of Contents in each journal for the past 5 years. In Cochrane systematic reviews, handsearch of conference proceedings is recommended for medical trials and data that are not reported.³⁷ In social sciences, specifically in circumpolar health research, conference proceedings publish abstracts but do not systematically publish peer-reviewed research papers. In consultation with two experts in circumpolar health research, we will not handsearch conference proceedings, as our eligibility criteria require primary research papers that undergo peer-review.

Additionally, forward and backwards citation search will be conducted for all included sources that have passed level 2 screening. Specifically, for each included source, their references will be reviewed for relevant papers, and a search for articles that have cited that source will be conducted in Google Scholar. For any sources that we cannot find full text, or missing data, we will contact the original authors.

Data storage and management

Following the academic and grey literature search, all records will be collated and uploaded into Zotero (Corporation for Digital Scholarship, Vienna, Virginia, USA) and duplicates removed. Following a pilot test, when reviewers have reached inter-rater reliability of at least 75%, titles and abstracts will then be screened by a minimum of two independent reviewers for assessment against the inclusion criteria for the review. Potentially relevant sources will be retrieved in full and their citation details imported into Covidence,³⁸ a software developed for conducting evidence syntheses. The full text of selected citations will be assessed in detail against the inclusion criteria by at least two independent reviewers. Reasons for exclusion of sources of evidence in full text that do not meet the inclusion criteria will be recorded and reported in the scoping review. Any disagreements that arise between the reviewers at each stage of the selection process will be resolved through discussion, or with an additional reviewer/s. The results of the search and the study inclusion process will be reported in full in the final scoping review and presented in a PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews flow diagram.³⁹

Data extraction

Data will be extracted from papers included in the scoping review by one reviewer using a data extraction tool developed and piloted by the review team. Following extraction, a second reviewer will check the data and will note if they agree, and if not, will note what data should be extracted. Any discrepancies will be discussed. The data extracted will include specific details about the participants, concept, context, study methods and key findings relevant to the review question.

The draft data extraction tool (online supplemental file 4) will be revised as necessary during the process of extracting data from each included evidence source. This may involve returning to papers that have been extracted and re-extracting further data as necessary. We will use Covidence for both screening and extraction as this will streamline our workflow. Modifications of the extraction form will be detailed in the scoping review.

Data analysis and presentation

Once the data are extracted and charted, we will present the findings according to our review questions. This includes describing the types of studies (quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods) and knowledge systems (Western, TEK). Papers will also be presented according to the type of theoretical or assessment framework used, and the pillar(s) of food (in)security they investigate. Tools or instruments used or developed will be described, methods of data collection and analysis, as well as specific populations recruited for the studies. Finally, we will highlight gaps in the research.

We will present the key numbers of papers in each stage of the process, in both the academic search and grey literature search. We will provide details of how many papers were found and included manually through hand searching or other means.

Patient and public involvement

This scoping review is a key deliverable of one of the actions of the Government of Yukon’s 2020 Our Clean Future: A Yukon strategy for climate change, energy and a green economy change, which involved two rounds of public engagement.³ The scoping review questions, objectives, searching and screening methods, and planned dissemination are informed by the action but did not have direct patient or public involvement.

Limitations

The geographical boundaries of this scoping review are Canada’s northern communities and the circumpolar region, which has a high proportion of Indigenous Peoples. We included specific keywords for Indigenous Peoples. Our search strategy was reviewed by an Academic Librarian specialising in Indigenous Health. While we had many peer reviewers, a limitation is that we did not have a peer reviewer who identified as Indigenous.

Another limitation is this study only includes sources in the English language. Some projects conducted in the circumpolar region may publish their outputs in other languages.