COwWEL – a OneWelfare approach studying food vulnerability

Socio-economically disadvantaged people are underrepresented in research on healthy and sustainable diets. At the same time, they are disproportionately affected by the consequences of unhealthy diets and nutritional poverty. Moreover, they have difficulty accessing high- quality food, not least because of the inflation of recent years. In the project COwWEL, individuals from these groups are actively involved as citizen scientists to investigate the factors that hinder or promote healthy and sustainable diets within their groups. Attitudes and relationships toward animals and concepts of welfare can influence consumption behaviour. Since no studies on these interconnections have been conducted within vulnerable groups, their investigation will form a significant part of the project. In collaboration with Caritas neighbourhood work, people already volunteering at Caritas are involved as citizen scientists. They will engage in their respective environments to help close the existing data gap. The focus is on three vulnerable groups: Austrians with low income, Ukrainians, and Syrians or people from other Arab countries with refugee or migration backgrounds. In an initial workshop held in summer 2025, the citizen scientists own experiences with sustainable diets will be explored, hypotheses will be generated together, and initial steps will be taken to develop a questionnaire as a data collection tool. Subsequently, after training and ongoing support from the COwWEL team, the citizen scientists will interview members of their group, partly during cooking events of Caritas Community Cooking. The results will be used to develop strategies that support healthy and sustainable eating habits and, in collaboration with the main project COwLEARNING for sustainable beef and dairy supply, more inclusive food systems. For this purpose, the results will be discussed in a second workshop in summer 2026 involving relevant actors of Viennas food system, e.g. food retailers and policy makers. Based on this, tailored informational material will be created and disseminated to the target groups in the final phase of the project.