Dr Brittany Johnson

Dr Brittany Johnson is a Senior Research Fellow in the Caring Futures Institute, and a Firefly Children's Foundation Fellow in Childhood Nutrition. She obtained a PhD in Public Health (Flinders University, conferred 2020) which identified intervention content to support parents to reduce provision of unhealthy foods to their young children, during the transition from preschool to school.

Brittany's research focusses on the design and evaluation of practical supports to improve children's nutrition. She has expertise in applying behaviour change theory and creating supportive environments where children and families live, work, learn and play. Her work includes building the evidence for school-provided meals in Australia: https://schoolfoodaustralia.org/

She led the deconstructing interventions component of the TOPCHILD Collaboration funded by an NHMRC Ideas Grant (2020-23). The TOPCHILD Collaboration is an international project is bringing together researchers from over 20 countries to transform early childhood obesity prevention, by exploring past, ongoing and planned interventions to understand how they work, and for whom. Brittany is part of the NHMRC EPOCH-Translate Centre for Research Excellence, Translating Early Promotion of Optimal Child Health (https://earlychildhoodobesity.com/)

Brittany is an Accredited Practising Dietitian with a background in public health nutrition and experience in working with Aboriginal communities and the child care sector to make healthy food choices.

Research interests:

• Children and families
• Health behaviours
• Unhealthy food intake
• Behaviour change
• School food
• Initiative design