Supporting Healthier, Sustainable and Equitable Food Environments: A Rapid Review of Australian Local Government...

To synthesise contemporary Australian evidence on how local governments act to support healthier, sustainable and equitable food environments, and to examine the governance arrangements, policy and planning levers, monitoring practices, and implementation conditions shaping local action.

A rapid review of peer-reviewed and grey literature published between January 2015 and February 2026 was performed. Searches were conducted in Medline Complete, CINAHL Complete, Health Policy Reference Centre and Scopus, alongside structured grey literature searches. Included documents addressed Australian LG food environment roles, policies, planning, governance, or monitoring. Findings were narratively synthesised and mapped to national research priorities.

Thirty-eight documents were included (23 peer-reviewed studies and 15 grey literature reports). Evidence clustered most strongly around food systems and food security, governance and multisectoral partnerships, and food environment monitoring, particularly food access profiling, affordability monitoring and mapping activities. In contrast, the extent of coverage on statutory planning mechanisms, formal regulatory powers, and consumer behaviour outcomes was limited. Reports of evaluated interventions were concentrated in bounded organisational settings where councils held clearer jurisdiction, such as sport and recreation facilities. Across contexts, LGs were commonly positioned as convenors, brokers and enablers operating within constrained mandates and fragmented multi-level governance settings. Reported enablers included leadership, dedicated resourcing, partnerships and access to local data; common barriers included limited statutory authority, short-term funding and weak vertical policy integration.

Australian local governments are active food system actors, but stronger statutory integration, clearer decision pathways, and more consistent monitoring and evaluation are needed to translate local activity into sustained improvements in healthy, sustainable and equitable food environments.