Jia, Junwen, Wang, Xiaoxi, He, Pan  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1088-6290 and Ioris, Antonio A. R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0156-2737
2026.
Income inequality reduction as a pathway to sustainable and healthy dietary transitions in Brazil.
Communications Earth & Environment
7
, 577.
10.1038/s43247-026-03568-y
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Abstract
Middle-income countries face challenges in achieving diets that are both nutritionally adequate and environmentally sustainable, while income-related dietary heterogeneity adds uncertainty to population-wide dietary transitions. Here we investigate how income inequality shapes long-term dietary transitions from nutritional and environmental perspectives. We project Brazilian dietary patterns from 2020 to 2100 in scenario-based income pathways by integrating national-representative survey data with nutritional and environmental databases. We find that reducing income inequality improves dietary nutritional quality by 5.7%, and avoids 40-50% of the increase in dietary environmental impacts projected under income-inequality-increasing scenarios by 2100. However, inequality reduction is associated with a short-term worsening of dietary environmental impacts, with an average deterioration of 2.2% relative to the baseline scenario. These results highlight a trade-off between short-term environmental pressures and long-term nutrition and sustainability benefits, underscoring that income inequality reduction alone is insufficient and should be complemented by broader policy packages to promote dietary transitions.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Published Online |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Earth and Environmental Sciences Schools > Geography and Planning (GEOPL) |
| Publisher: | Nature Research |
| ISSN: | 2662-4435 |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 30 April 2026 |
| Date of Acceptance: | 20 April 2026 |
| Last Modified: | 06 Aug 2026 14:02 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/186702 |
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