RE-FRESH: Next Generation Chief Investigator, Dr Tailane Scapin, has completed a three-month secondment with the World Health Organisation (WHO), contributing to regional policy efforts on healthy and sustainable food systems across Asia and the Pacific.
Above: Dr Tailane Scapin (far left) with WHO-ACE colleagues in Seoul, South Korea.
Between October and December 2025, Dr Tailane Scapin undertook a secondment with WHO’s Asia-Pacific Centre for Environment and Health (WHO-ACE) in Seoul, South Korea. The secondment supported WHO-ACE’s efforts to “promote and enable healthy and sustainable diets through policies and institutions”, as outlined in its 2025-2030 strategic plan.
The Asia–Pacific region faces a dual challenge: a growing burden of diet-related disease alongside increasing vulnerability to climate change. Food systems sit at the center of both issues, shaping population health while remaining highly sensitive to environmental shocks.
Dr Scapin’s work focuses on monitoring and supporting food retail initiatives that integrate health and environmental sustainability. During the secondment, she contributed to WHO-ACE’s efforts to advance policy discussions with governments across the Western Pacific as well as the development of the organisation’s sustainable food systems work agenda. In particular, this agenda includes exploration of how retail food environments (an often overlooked lever in this region) could be strengthened to promote healthier and more sustainable diets.
Above: Dr Tailane Scapin WHO-ACE office in Seoul, South Korea.
Dr Scapin also actively collaborated on a policy brief showcasing examples of sustainable food system initiatives across the region, such as local food procurement in public institutions in Fiji and Vanuatu. Teaming up with an international group of researchers to develop a regional report on the current landscape and policy priorities for sustainable food systems, the report will help inform future WHO-ACE activities and engagement across countries in the region. Stay tuned for more information when these materials are released!
The secondment provided valuable opportunities to promote the work of RE-FRESH: Next Generation within WHO and across the region, and highlighted the growing recognition of food environments, including retail, as a critical lever for improving health and sustainability outcomes. It also reinforced the role of the Deakin Centre for Global Preventive Health and Nutrition (GLOBE), where Dr Scapin is based, as a WHO Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention.
Outside of her work at WHO-ACE, Dr Scapin also had the opportunity to explore beautiful South Korea in autumn.
Above: A personal photo from Dr Tailane Scapin of the beautiful autumn leaves changing colour in South Korea.
