Food for Life: No one in America should go hungry

I’ve discussed Kaiser Permanente’s work to tackle one of the most pressing issues related to the health of those who live in our community – ensuring everyone has a roof over their head. It’s critical work and we’re committed to making progress against a problem that is far too prevalent.

We know, though, that housing isn’t the only barrier to healthier communities. So while our housing work continues to accelerate, we’re also moving forward on an equally important priority of the most basic of human needs: food security.

Unfortunately, food security is an issue that remains ever-present in our communities despite the resources and wealth associated with our country. It’s unacceptable that so many should struggle to find nutritious meals to keep them thriving. No one in America should go to bed hungry.

This is a solvable problem. We know that much more food goes to waste than needed to feed the ones missing meals. We will need to review the process and address this head on. 

As we look at the ways we can help improve health outside of the doctor’s office there are few issues where we can make as immediate and sustained progress against our goal than this one. That’s why we’re moving ahead, aggressively pulling every lever available to us as an organization and working with partners to see what is effective and where we can scale up.

And we know that solving for food security goes beyond just giving people food. People’s attitudes toward food, the economic tradeoffs they must make, the stigma around food assistance, and social and culture dimensions all play a role. That’s why Kaiser Permanente is taking a comprehensive approach to meet people’s immediate needs for food, and looking at ways to address the key causes of food insecurity.

We announced an innovative initiative called Food for Life: a broad-scale texting campaign to connect eligible California residents with CalFresh (the state’s supplemental nutrition assistance program, or SNAP). The initial outreach has a target of helping more than 200,000 Kaiser Permanente members determine their eligibility for the program and apply for CalFresh.

In addition to driving CalFresh enrollment, we are also designing and assessing approaches to medically tailored meal delivery services, which can be necessary for medication management, allergies, or management of conditions such as cancer or diabetes.

Additionally, Kaiser Permanente is a founding partner of the Health Eating Active Living (HEAL) Cities Campaign, which supports small and medium-sized cities in their efforts to improve the physical environment and give residents more opportunities to be physically active and eat healthy foods. Through that partnership we are advocating for policies at the local level that can improve the diet and health of their residents – including identifying healthy food contractors, using regulatory power effectively and providing incentives to attract and support healthy food options.

These are just some examples of the work Kaiser Permanente is doing to address food security. We know that without a healthy diet it is nearly impossible to stay healthy. We are committed to fighting this issue and making progress across the country.