Feb 10, 2023
On Jan. 19, 2023, USDA participated within the first of seven regional summits targeted on strengthening the intersections between healthcare and vitamin safety hosted by ProMedica and The Root Trigger Coalition at The Carter Middle in Atlanta, Georgia.
These regional summits construct on USDA’s first-ever Nationwide Vitamin Safety and Healthcare Summit held in Washington, D.C., in October 2022, a number of weeks after the historic White Home Convention on Starvation, Vitamin, and Well being. By bringing greater than 200 key stakeholders collectively, together with a number of Congressional members and their workers, the nationwide summit showcased related White Home Convention commitments throughout the healthcare sector aiming to combine vitamin and well being. Collectively, the nationwide and regional summits are leveraging the momentum of the White Home Convention’s corresponding Nationwide Technique that goals to finish starvation, enhance vitamin and bodily exercise, and cut back diet-related ailments and disparities.
As Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack stated in his opening recorded remarks on the latest Atlanta summit, “Starvation and diet-related ailments are nearly solely preventable. And USDA administers among the only instruments to assist handle these issues … however the USDA can’t combat this battle alone.”
Likewise, Home Agriculture Rating Member Congressman David Scott’s (GA-13) acknowledged the significance of inspecting starvation as a well being subject. He challenged individuals to work collectively to finish starvation in America, whereas addressing diet-related ailments. Rating Member Scott emphasised strengthening necessary applications, just like the USDA Supplemental Vitamin Help Program (SNAP), might be a part of this work. Along with Rating Member Scott, Congressional workers from D.C. and the Southeast Area participated within the summit, demonstrating the necessary position Congressional leaders play in connecting the dots between healthcare and vitamin safety. Rating Member Scott underscored his participation within the summit and the significance of this work in a tweet the next day.
In the course of the half-day Atlanta summit, greater than 100 individuals heard about and shared a number of profitable methods the healthcare sector and group organizations assist their communities handle a key social determinant of well being – entry to wholesome meals.
One in every of many highlighted fashions included the Meals as Drugs partnership between Grady Well being System, Open Hand Atlanta and the Atlanta Group Meals Financial institution. Bringing a concentrate on well being and therapeutic throughout the Atlanta group, this distinctive partnership screens sufferers for meals insecurity and connects them to assets comparable to meals prescriptions for wholesome meals and cooking courses the place sufferers can learn to put together tasty, wholesome meals.
On the summit, USDA offered an outline of its actions to advance meals and vitamin safety. The Veterans Well being Administration shared the way it not too long ago established a devoted Workplace of Meals Safety that focuses on screening and referrals to the Federal vitamin security internet. As well as, the Division of Well being and Human Companies, together with a state official from North Carolina, mirrored on the optimistic impacts of Medicaid Part 1115 demonstration waivers that grant states autonomy in delivering improvements to raised handle meals and housing insecurity points amongst Medicaid recipients.
Collectively, Deputy Below Secretary of Meals, Vitamin, and Client Companies Stacy Dean believes “these summits will catalyze and encourage those that are already engaged to do extra and supply a collaborative studying alternative for many who are new to the area to come back to the desk to find out how they will higher intersect with the huge Federal vitamin security internet.”
The Southeast Regional Summit offered an incredible basis for different upcoming regional summits that may happen at Ypsilanti, Michigan, on March 24, 2023, and Worcester, Massachusetts, on June 1, 2023. 4 extra will happen by means of spring 2024. As we construct on these essential conversations throughout vitamin safety and healthcare sectors, Secretary of Well being and Human Companies Xavier Becerra stresses that “our work will not be simple, and outcomes could not come in a single day however the work that we’re placing in will harvest actual change and outcomes that final. Let’s get to it.”
For extra data on USDA’s work on this space or upcoming regional summits, please electronic mail [email protected].
Meals and Vitamin
