Understanding Food Is Medicine
What Is Food Is Medicine?
The scientific connection between food and health has been well known for decades. The foods and beverages that people consume ― or do not consume ― directly impact overall health. Today, more than half of adults in the United States have one or more diet-related diseases. Improving diet can help to prevent and manage many dietary-related health states and conditions.
Food Is Medicine (FIM) encompasses a broad range of approaches that promote optimal health and healing and reduce disease burden by providing nutritious food — in conjunction with human services, education, and policy change — through collaboration at the nexus of health care and community.
Food Is Medicine models are food-based services that can be integrated into health care. These approaches should be contextualized to the community and people served. Commonly used models include medically tailored meals, medically tailored groceries, produce prescriptions, and other nutrition incentives.
These models should be structured to allow individuals to move between them based on changing diet-related health needs.
See more about Our Principles for Food Is Medicine to learn about providing nutritious food through education, policy changes, and collaboration at the nexus of health care and community.
What Are the Major Examples of FIM Interventions?
FIM models include a range of programs and interventions centered around the provision of food at the intersection of health care and community. FIM models operate in relation to a broader context of systems that enable interventions. Program models that are currently employed include:
- Medically tailored meals and groceries: Fully prepared meals or tailored groceries designed or selected by a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN) to meet an individual’s medical needs.
- Medically supported meals and groceries: Lightly processed or unprepared foods aligned with medical needs for individuals to prepare at home.
- Produce prescription programs: A bundle of fruits and vegetables provided to an individual as part of a medical treatment or preventive service due to diet-related chronic conditions, food insecurity, or other challenge in access to nutritious foods.
- Nutrition incentives: A financial or nonfinancial encouragement to purchase healthier foods.
Models are often paired with services provided by RDNs, such as nutrition education, supermarket tours, cooking classes, and medical nutrition therapy.
What Partners Are Needed to Establish and Scale Food Is Medicine?
Diverse organizations and sectors have reinforcing and collaborative assets that collectively advance and expand FIM solutions. Successful FIM interventions rely on a variety of partners from across different types of organizations and sectors.
The community and individuals served by interventions should be at the center of any FIM partnership. This ensures person-centered design and consideration for culturally and regionally appropriate approaches.
Other partners include individuals and organizations providing clinical care, navigation and referral, food provision, and educational support.
Beyond those implementing a FIM intervention directly, additional partners in the broader ecosystem have relationships to supporting access to and use of healthy foods to address diet-related diseases. These include public health partners, retailers, growers and food producers, and those who support infrastructure and technology development.
The graphic below shows the 4 components to consider for inclusion in all FIM interventions. At the core of any intervention is the provision of food itself — but in an ideal situation, the provision of food is accompanied by navigation and educational supports provided by a care team that could include a range of health professionals with an understanding of the individual’s needs.
An integrated system of partners will enable a robust FIM infrastructure of providers that includes multiple pathways from which to connect individuals and FIM interventions. An integrated system can be used to meet increased demand for healthy food support.
Data and Evaluation
How Can Existing Data and Tools Support FIM Intervention Measurement and Evaluation?
To support implementers in evaluating Food Is Medicine, HHS — with input from a range of federal and nonfederal partners — established an analytic framework with shared principles, measurement domains, and indicators.
Additional federal guidance and data resources can be found below:
- Nutrition and Obesity Policy Research and Evaluation Network
- Nutrition Incentive Projects Core Metrics Toolkit [PDF 254 KB]
- PLACES: Local Data for Better Health | CDC
- The United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI)
Where Can I Learn About Food Security Measurement and Tracking?
National Tracking
Healthy People 2030 sets data-driven national objectives to improve health and well-being over the next decade. The following objectives relate to food insecurity. Data snapshots show progress towards the established targets for each objective.
Food Security Measurement
The USDA Economic Research Service provides an overview of how household food security and food insecurity are measured. To learn more, visit Food Security in the U.S.: Measurement.
For detailed technical information on measurement methods, questionnaires, and calculating food security scales, visit Food Security in the U.S.: Survey Tools.
For interactive charts on various aspects of food security, visit Food Security in the U.S.: Interactive Charts and Highlights to learn more.
Food Assistance and Food Access Measurement and Tools
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides access to several resources for food in everyday situations as well as before, during, and after emergencies and disasters.
These resources are for individuals, households, governments, tribes, institutions, communities, and community-based and feeding organizations.
For a summary and access to resources, visit Food Assistance and Food System Resources on the CDC website.
Screening Best Practices
What Resources Can Help Me Learn About Community and Individual Screening for Food and Nutritional Needs?
- Food Security Assessment Toolkit provides a toolkit of standardized measurement tools for assessing various aspects of community food security.
- Survey Tools offer screening tools for food insecurity, such as the U.S. Household Food Security Survey Module. Many non-English translations are available.
- The Hunger Vital Sign [PDF - 1,017 KB] is a two-question food insecurity screening tool. It is available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Korean, Nepali, Russian, Somalian, Spanish, Swahili, and Vietnamese.
- The Administration for Community Living Nutrition and Aging Resource Center offers Training and Tools and Data and Reports for older adults.
- The Accountable Health Communities Health-Related Social Needs Screening Tool [PDF - 328 KB] is a two-question screening tool for food insecurity available from CDC.
What Resources Are Used to Measure and Assess Access to Healthy Foods?
National Tracking
Healthy People 2030 sets data-driven national objectives to improve health and well-being over the next decade. The following objectives relate to access to foods that support healthy dietary patterns. Data snapshots show progress toward the established targets for each objective.
- Reduce household food insecurity and hunger
- Eliminate very low food security in children
- Increase fruit consumption by people aged 2 years and over
- Increase vegetable consumption by people aged 2 years and older
Food Access Research Atlas
USDA Economic Research created a tool that presents an overview of food access indicators for low-income and other census tracts using different measures of supermarket accessibility; provides food access data for populations within census tracts; and offers census-tract-level data on food access that can be downloaded for community planning or research purposes. To learn more, see Food Access Research Atlas.
Local Food Resource Directory
The USDA resource allows users to search for a farmers' market, community supported agriculture, or other local food businesses by ZIP code, product, payment method, and other criteria. To learn more, see Local Food Directories.
Where Can I Find Nutrition and Chronic Disease Statistics Relevant to Food Is Medicine?
Healthy People 2030
- Healthy People 2030 sets data-driven national objectives to improve health and well-being over the next decade. To learn more about national nutrition and healthy eating objectives and how well the U.S. population is doing at meeting each objective, visit Nutrition and Healthy Eating.
- Detailed data for each objective can provide insights in how outcomes differ by demographic group and over time.
Nutrition and Dietary Consumption Data
- To view an interactive database that provides national and state data about the health status and behavior of individuals living in the United States, including data related to fruit and vegetable behaviors as well as policy and environmental supports, visit DNPAO Data, Trends, and Maps Database.
- To view state-specific profiles that highlight opportunities to strengthen food and nutrition security programs, policies or practices, and infrastructure, see Food and Nutrition Security State and National Profiles.
- For rural communities, the Rural Health Information Hub provides access to publications and maps, including: Hunger and Access to Healthy Food and Obesity Prevalence, 2023.
Diet-related Chronic Disease
External Resources
If I Want to Learn About Aspects of FIM policy and Research Synthesis, What Key External Organizations With Information Are Available?
- AHA Health Care by Food
- Aspen Food and Society
- CHLPI
- KFF Medicaid Waiver Tracker
- FIMC
- Milken Food Is Medicine
- NPPC
- Rockefeller Foundation FIM Initiative
- Tufts FIM Institute
What Are Some Examples of Nonfederal White Papers and Reports That Help Frame Our Understanding of FIM?
- Planting Seeds for Food Is Medicine: Pre-Implementation Planning Methods and Formative Evaluation Findings From a Multi-Clinic Initiative in the Midwest [PDF - 587 KB]
- Food Is Medicine: The Road To Universal Coverage
- Food Is Medicine: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association
- Food Is Medicine Initiative for Mitigating Food Insecurity in the United States
- Food and Society at Aspen Institute FIM Research Action Plan
- BPC: Healthy Eating Rx: Improving Nutrition through Health Care
- Food as Medicine: How Food and Diet Impact the Treatment of Disease and Disease Management
NOTE: This page contains links to non-United States Government websites. We are providing these links because they contain additional information relevant to the topic(s) discussed in this document or that otherwise may be useful to the reader. We cannot attest to the accuracy of information provided on the cited third-party websites or any other linked third-party site. We are providing these links for reference only; linking to a non-United States Government website does not constitute an endorsement by HHS, or any of our employees. Also, please be aware that the privacy protections generally provided by United States Government websites do not apply to third-party sites.
