2020 Harkin on Wellness Submission Form
Food is something we all have in common. We must eat to live but more importantly, we must eat healthy food to live well. Food is the common thread between almost all the national and global challenges today. It drives health, environmental, social, and economic outcomes. Making the right food and nutrition choices to promote multi-sector improvements is nearly impossible if we do not have appropriate laws and guidelines as well as social and physical environments in place to support and encourage healthy choices.
Food and nutrition must be addressed as an opportunity to promote better health, lower health care costs, reduce disparities, improve sustainable agriculture practices, increase economic vitality, and support sustainable development. The Food Is Medicine model outlines the system level change necessary to address all related issues. The Food is Medicine model, where food is used as a health intervention to prevent and treat chronic diseases, is often used as prescriptive tool (e.g., medically tailored meals or food prescriptions); however, we need to view the model as a tool to solve cross-sectional problems including: economic vitality; biodiversity and the environment; equity; and health & nutrition.
There are increasing opportunities to integrate innoative nutrition and wellness program models into diverse settings. Creating a system that supports and sustains the healthy food systems is important, not just to ongoing nutrition and wellness programming but as a means to expand and enrich broader health preventive efforts.
We believe innovative and progressive wellness and nutrition initiatives that utilize a systems approach to food and nutrition issues are able to have a larger impact on issues. Furthermore, we believe effective policy, system level, and environmental change is necessary to accelerate the adoption, effectiveness, and sustainability of food and nutrition programs. The submission link will close on Friday, November 8, 2019.
Applications will be selected through a competitive internal and external review process. Designees will be notified in January 2020. All designees will be invited to attend and present at the Harkin On Wellness Symposium in Spring 2020. The Harkin Institute will cover travel costs* to Des Moines and give each designee at $500 honorarium and plaque recognizing your organization. The 2018 and 2019 Harkin on Wellness reports can be found on The Harkin Institute website.
*Cover a portion of travel to Des Moines, Iowa.
With that in mind, please answer the following questions:
Please outline how your organization has used policy, system, and environmental change to support the adoption, implementation, and sustainability of your project/program?
Policy change: policies are a formal written statement of positions. Can be laws, ordinances, resolutions, mandates, guidelines, regulations, or rules at the legislative or organizational level (e.g., tax on unhealthy food, zoning ordinances, school prohibiting unhealthy food in school fundraising events).
System change: change made to organizational processes or methods, involving the infrastructure of an organization or community (e.g., farm to school programs, providing locally grown procurement to food providers).
Environmental change: physical, observable change to the built, economic, and/or social environment (e.g., availability of healthy food choices at local restaurants, sidewalk accessibility).