Food Insecurity Intervention in Allendale County
Advanced Collaboration: Growers for Grace PBC, Allendale County Hospital, SC Thrive, Palmetto Care Connections, Heroic Health, American College of Lifestyle Medicine, and Instacart
Positive outcomes in equity and health through food is medicine: A pilot intervention to address food insecurity in Allendale County among patients with type 2 diabetes
Food and nutrition interventions can aid in the prevention, management and even reversal of diet-related chronic conditions. Proven interventions introduced at scale, hold the potential to save millions of lives and billions in healthcare costs each year. We believe we can help fight food loss and hunger, reverse diet-related chronic disease and GHG emissions, we can increase grower sustainability and increase population and planetary health all in combinatory modalities through a Food is Medicine approach that considers locally-grown food in its programming. Our proposal helps explore the needs of our health care systems to support a locally sustainable, resilient, equitable, and nourishing evidence-base in food and medicine.
Allendale County Hospital, a designated Critical Access Hospital in Fairfax, South Carolina, in partnership with Growers for Grace, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and others will lead a local Food is Medicine pilot in Allendale County beginning with individuals living with Type 2 Diabetes who are simultaneously experiencing food and nutrition insecurity. The pilot will be structured with capacity to grow into a broader, multi-county reach and enrollment inclusion of additional diet-related chronic conditions through key learnings at each step. Together with a collaborative, interdisciplinary, public-private network of local, state, and national resources, the pilot will develop a compassion-driven, individually-responsive, scalable intervention where locally grown food is coupled with evidence-based Food is Medicine programming to dynamically ease disparities, lower rates of diseases like diabetes, reduce unsustainable healthcare costs related to chronic conditions, and lift local South Carolina communities in need.
