Our Science Advisors

Our Experts

Health Care by Food is backed by a network of multidisciplinary experts who together bring decades of research, clinical experience and community engagement to redefine how we think about health and nutrition. From leading researchers in cardiovascular and population health to advocates for food equity and policy change, our experts drive the initiative's mission to integrate food as a core element of health care.

Research Planning Group

The work of the Research Planning Group is instrumental in structuring the overall research strategy with a focus on generating the evidence necessary for demonstrating the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of food is medicine interventions. This group oversees the work of the individual task forces that have been constituted in support of this initiative.
Research Planning Group

Policy Evaluation Task Force

The Policy Evaluation Task Force is charged with strategic assessment of the landscape of food is medicine pilot and demonstration projects in state Medicaid programs, including the evaluation of Medicaid 1115 waivers.  A goal of this task force is to use this information to identify unanswered questions and use these insights to inform the initiative’s subsequent food is medicine research.
Policy Evaluation Task Force

Health Equity & Common Measures Task Force

The Health Equity & Common Measures Task Force is focused on developing and providing recommendations on centering equity in our research goals. This team is also tasked with providing recommendations to study teams on core measures to be collected across projects to facilitate subsequent comparison of results across studies and potential pooling of data.
Health Equity & Common Measures Task Force

Field Based Infrastructure Task Force

The Field-Based Infrastructure Task Force is charged with outlining essential elements to deliver food is medicine interventions within health care systems, with a goal of providing recommendations on tools in testing and implementing these programs.

Field Based Infrastructure Task Force

Platform Development Task Force

The goal for the Platform Development Task Force is to establish a roadmap for data platform development and a framework for assessing different platforms that can be used to support the automation of behavioral intervention trials.

Cooperative Studies Group

The Cooperative Studies Group closely partners with each funded study, aiding with human-centered design, behavioral science considerations, planned implementation and community engagement, and providing supplemental statistical and cost effectiveness research expertise as needed. The task forces within this group review each funded protocol and provide composite reviews back to the teams highlighting major and minor suggestions for improvement as well as any “must dos.” Teams are then required to provide a “response to reviewers” with further discussion if requested by either reviewers of the project team. In addition, all teams participate in training in human-centered design through workshops and individual coaching of their project teams.

The group is comprised of five task forces:

Cooperative Studies Group