Task Force Recommendations to White House
The Task Force on Hunger, Nutrition and Health has released their recommendations for priorities around hunger and nutrition ahead of the planned White House conference on this topic.
The full report and more information about the task force can be found here. The 30 recommendations cover the topics of Federal Nutrition Programs, Public Health & Nutrition Education, Health Care, Research and Science, Business and Innovation, and Federal Coordination.
Many of the recommendations emphasize alignment with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. In past years, these guidelines have attracted controversy due to perceived conflicts of interest in accommodating industry interests in sugar, meat, and processed foods. The process is currently underway for the next update of the guidelines, DGA 2025-2030. Read more about the timeline here.
The task force recommendations are vague about many elements of funding structures and who would be the primary source of investment. Some areas where their overall interests overlap with missing pieces in Vermont health care work include:
Produce prescription options that can work in a variety of retail and food market environments.
GusNIP Produce Prescription adjustments, including noting that the current structure for evaluating efficacy lacks the size, funding, and basic elements such as comparison groups. Using these grants for robust evaluations would require a redesign.
Expanding use of standardized food insecurity screening and referral to services. This area in particular is one where the funding and structure of that funding will need additional clarification, including more detailed work on relevant quality measures.
Funding for Federally-Qualified Health Centers to run Food Is Medicine programs (Bi-State, the parent organization of VT FAHC, represents the policy interests of FQHCs).
The report calls for clarification to / greater flexibility in HIPAA and Inducements rules to eliminate unnecessary legal barriers in partnerships between health care and other sectors.
Another important area of concordance is in calling for Congress and the White House to respond directly to the 2021 GAO Report on lack of federal coordination around diet-related health conditions.
The Task Force will present their findings in a webinar on Wednesday, August 31st, from 2:00 - 3:30 pm EST. Register here.
The official website for the White House Conference is here.