Food is Medicine Initiative
Over half of American adults suffer from at least one chronic, diet-related disease. Though food is the culprit, it can also be the cure: food and nutrition interventions can aid in prevention and management, and even reverse chronic disease. Introduced at large scale, proven interventions can save thousands of lives and billions in healthcare costs each year.
Food & Society’s Food is Medicine Research Action Plan, published in 2022, quickly became the definitive go-to source of all Food is Medicine research—it is the only comprehensive overview of all peer-reviewed nutrition-intervention studies. The revision, published in 2024 with continuing generosity from the Walmart Foundation, fully updates the quickly evolving body of research and authoritatively describes the opportunities as well as the challenges of scaling, evaluating, and delivering health-promoting food where it is most needed. The report keeps equity and full community inclusion at its core.
Food & Society released the 2024 Food is Medicine Research Action Plan on April 9th. The presentation included a review of updated research and the action plan’s recommendations. A panel of discussion focused on what is happening on the ground in Food is Medicine.
Agenda
Welcome from Corby Kummer, executive director of Food & Society at the Aspen Institute
2024 Food is Medicine Research Action Plan presentation, thanks to support from the Walmart Foundation, with co-authors:
Kurt Hager, PhD, MS
UMass Chan Medical School
Alexandra Lewin-Zwerdling, PhD, MPA
Fruitful LLC
Food is Medicine On the Ground Panel Discussion with:
Luisa Furstenberg-Beckman, MPH
Produce Rx Manager, DC Greens
Jillian Griffith, MSPH, RDN
Sr. Health Partnerships Manager, Amazon Access and Aspen Institute Food Leaders Fellow
Tom McDougall
Founder and CEO, 4P Foods and Aspen Institute Food Leaders Fellow
Pamela Schwartz, MPH
Executive Director, Community Health, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals
The report synthesizes the latest peer-reviewed Food is Medicine research and outlines a roadmap for equity-centered research
[Washington, DC] Food & Society at the Aspen Institute has released its 2024 Food is Medicine Research Action Plan. This report builds on the 2022 version, outlining a roadmap for equity-centered research that can revolutionize how diet-related conditions are prevented, treated, and managed in the United States. It is the first report to pull together the latest peer-reviewed Food is Medicine research in a digestible, comprehensible, and action-oriented format.
Food & Society in the News
Listen to UCLA LiveWell podcast
Listen to Corby Kummer’s recent interview on Food as Medicine with UCLA LiveWell podcast on Spotify or ApplePodcasts
He asks the sort of perspective-shifting questions, as a writer and as the Executive Director of the Food and Society Program and the Aspen Institute, that can reframe our understanding of food access and food justice and, as he says, can help shine light where it’s not been shined before. This episode really dives into the importance of building community trust between researchers and communities and most importantly, bringing different groups together with cross-sector knowledge to create meaningful change in the food equity world.
Food is Medicine California Style
In the shadow of California’s State Capitol, over two dozen researchers and practitioners gathered in May to discuss Food is Medicine implementation and advancement. The group deliberated on balancing equity with the need for speed and rigor while revisiting our 2022 Action Plan. They also brainstormed ideas for data sharing and bringing local action to scale nationally.
The learnings from this gathering were critical to our response to the National Institute of Health’s Request for Information on FIM research opportunities.
Our Advisors
Ann Albright
Advisor, Food is Medicine
former Director of Division of Diabetes Translation, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention
Karen Bachman-Carter
Advisor, Food is Medicine
former Public Health Nutritionist and Diabetes Educator, Indian Health Service
Seth A. Berkowitz
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Joslyn Brenton
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Associate Professor of Sociology, Ithaca College
Bridget Carle
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Senior Vice President, Public Sector Practice, Guy Carpenter
Juliana Crawford
Advisor, Food is Medicine
National Executive Vice President, Consumer Health Solutions, American Heart Association
Cathryn Couch
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Founder and CEO, Ceres Community Project
Mitchell Elkind
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Chief Clinical Science Officer, American Heart Association
Kofi Essel
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Director, Food as Medicine, Elevance Health
Katie Garfield
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Director of Whole Person Care and Clinical Instructor, Health Law and Policy Clinic, Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, Harvard Law School
Tiffany Gary-Webb
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, and Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health
Kurt Hager
Author and Advisor, Food is Medicine
UMass Chan Medical School
Sheila Hanley
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Senior Advisor, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Innovation Center
Devon Klatell
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Vice President, Food Initiative, The Rockefeller Foundation
Zhongyu Li
Co-Author and Advisor, Food is Medicine
PhD Candidate, Nutrition Health Services, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University
Jen Muse
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Associate Science and Medicine Advisor, American Heart Association
Vanessa Nicholson-Robinson
Assistant Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine
Gita Rampersad
Advisor, Food is Medicine
former Vice President, Equity and Programs, Feeding America
Pamela Schwartz
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Executive Director of Community Health, Kaiser Permanente
Hilary Seligman
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Professor of Medicine and of Epidemiology, University of California, San Francisco
Lauren Shweder Biel
Advisor, Food is Medicine
former Executive Director and Co-Founder, DC Greens
Karen Siegel
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Epidemiologist, Senior Service Fellow, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Emma Steinberg
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Chef and Pediatric Hospitalist, Newton Wellesley Hospital
Andrea Talhami
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Programs Director, DC Greens
Jean Terranova
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Director of Food and Health Policy, Community Servings
Alissa Wassung
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Executive Director, Food Is Medicine Coalition
Marianna Wetherill
Advisor, Food is Medicine Initiative
George Kaiser Family Foundation Chair in Population Healthcare; Assistant Professor of Health Promotion Sciences and Family and Community Medicine
Norbert Wilson
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Director of Food and Agriculture Policy, Duke Divinity School and Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke
Allison Yoder
Advisor, Food is Medicine
Nutrition in Food Retail Program Development Fellow, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation
