Introducing The Aspen Institute Food Is Medicine Research Action Plan

In January, Food & Society at the Aspen Institute and the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School (CHLPI) released the Food is Medicine Research Action Plan outlining a comprehensive set of recommendations to expand and strengthen research on nutrition interventions in health care. The Research Action Plan was developed over 18 months and led by a group of expert advisors, among whom was our Senior Director of Policy & Planning, Alissa Wassung.

The Food is Medicine Research Action Plan describes the coordinated effort and investment that is needed to build the evidence base to integrate food access into our healthcare system.

The Action Plan succinctly summarizes the Food is Medicine research to date, which overwhelmingly demonstrates the effectiveness of nutrition interventions such as medically tailored meals, medically tailored groceries, and produce prescriptions. It also puts forward 26 recommendations to guide the next decade of equity-centered research in the Food is Medicine field, and provides specific questions researchers must first address before implementing interventions.

The Plan also identifies urgent questions that have yet to be explored, some of which God’s Love is actively pursuing in our own internal evaluations and in research partnerships with external organizations. We are thrilled with this comprehensive and thoughtful brief and energized to continue our efforts toward building the evidence base that documents the effectiveness of medically tailored meals.