Food nourishes our bodies, and it is also a powerful cultural symbol. For a researcher in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, food is also medicine.
Dr. Bailey Houghtaling is a a registered dietician, is working to promote overall wellness among low-income individuals experiencing food insecurity, aiming to prevent or treat diet-related diseases.
“Access to enough nutritious food is essential for individual well-being,” said Houghtaling. “Food is Medicine can encompass a variety of interventions.”
The White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, held in September 2022, renewed national attention and issued a call to action to end hunger and reduce the prevalence of chronic diseases in the U.S. by 2030. Food is Medicine programs could help reach this goal.
“These programs are promising, and there is a lot of emphasis at the moment on understanding effectiveness for promoting food and nutrition security, although it is important to recognize that Food is Medicine programs are implemented in diverse communities and health care organizations with varying levels of support or capacity,” Houghtaling continues.
The academic continues: “It is critical to understand factors about these contexts that influence program adoption, implementation, sustainment, and scalability for public health impact.”
Houghtaling has recently assessed, in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, the organizational factors in healthcare settings that affect the success of Food is Medicine programs.
Electronic medical record functionality appears necessary to identify and track patients for Food is Medicine programs and increase the sharing of data between partner organizations was important to support implementation and evaluation. Strategies to help health care staff implement these programs were also important, such as providing reminders and problem-solving and technical assistance support.
A second line of inquiry, published in BMJ Journals, outlines how to leverage nationally representative data among U.S. households to identify individual, household, and community factors that likely influence participant engagement and utilization of these programs.
“Households experience heightened barriers to fresh fruit and vegetable access in the United States, depending on several factors,” Houghtaling said. “It is important to understand the implications of this policy limitation to inform future Food is Medicine policy that maximizes impact and equity.”
Both papers were funded by a National Institutes of Food and Agriculture grant awarded to the Center for Nutrition and Health Impact. It established the Nutrition Incentive Program Training, Technical Assistance, Evaluation, and Information Center through the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program. The second paper also was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
