“Food Is Medicine” Strategies for Nutrition Security and Cardiometabolic Health Equity
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Implication
Evidence review demonstrates improved cardiometabolic outcomes and food security through food-based healthcare interventions, highlighting opportunities to scale nutrition equity.
Key Points
- To review the spectrum of Food Is Medicine interventions integrated into healthcare systems and evaluate their effects on nutrition security, cardiometabolic health, and health equity.
- Synthesized evidence across diverse interventions, including medically tailored meals, tailored groceries, and produce prescriptions accompanied by culinary and nutrition education.
- Evaluated supportive healthcare infrastructure, including care pathways, payment models, electronic food security screening, and medical nutrition education policies across predominantly quasiexperimental and pre/post studies.
- Food Is Medicine interventions consistently show positive qualitative impacts on reducing food insecurity, improving overall diet quality, lowering blood pressure, and enhancing glucose control and body weight management.
- Programs are associated with improvements in disease self-management, self-perceived mental and physical health, and healthcare cost-effectiveness or net cost savings, while definitive large-scale randomized trials remain ongoing.
Cite This Study
Mozaffarian et al. (2024) studied this question.