Promoting Nutrition and Health Equity

High rates of food insecurity and diets that lead to disease are two sides of a dysfunctional food system. To create food systems that better support health and health equity, the Institute conducts research, policy analysis, advocacy and education that supports changing the structures, institutional practices, and environments that limit access to healthy affordable food and often make unhealthy food choices easier than healthy ones.

To support healthier diets, our work also seeks to address other fundamental causes of malnourishment such as the high cost of housing and health care, inadequate safety net programs, and food businesses that seek to profit by promoting unhealthy products.

Projects

The Institute has conducted research on the prevalence of predatory marketing, the targeted promotion of unhealthy ultra-processed foods to Black, Latinx and other communities and policies to reduce the practice in cities. Our work has supported legislation in New York State to ban predatory food marketing, and contributed to the adoption of an executive order in New York City to ban unhealthy food marketing on city property.

Partners

  • Center for Science in the Public Interest
  • Office of NYS Senator Zellnor Myrie

The Institute analyzes changing food environments and grocery shopping patterns to understand the role of food retail incentive policies on food access and other strategies to improve the availability of healthy food. We conduct evaluation research on the effects of new food retail models (i.e. online shopping) on food expenditures, time savings, food purchases and anticipated nutritional outcomes, and analyze policies to expand access to nutrition assistance programs like SNAP, WIC, school food, and fruit and vegetable incentive programs.

Partners

  • Hunger Free America
  • HOPE Enterprises
  • Mayor’s Office of Food Policy