USDA Expands Access to Nutrition Resources
U.S. Department of Agriculture
WASHINGTON (News Release) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced a $4.5 million investment to create three additional USDA Nutrition Hubs. The hubs will support effective, translatable and scalable approaches to advance food and nutrition security and reduce the burden of diet-related chronic diseases, especially in underserved, at-risk communities.
“Nutrition security means everyone has consistent and equitable access to healthy, safe, affordable foods essential to optimal health and well-being.” said Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.
The addition of these three Hubs creates a network that builds on the pilot Nutrition Hub established last year in partnership with Southern University and A&M College under USDA’s Agricultural Science Center of Excellence for Nutrition and Diet for Better Health (ASCEND for Better Health) initiative.
Funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, along with funds from the USDA Agricultural Research Service, the Nutrition Hub network will complement and increase the impact of USDA’s collective contributions to the Extension, education and research communities and underserved communities at large through the lens of precision nutrition.
Precision nutrition is a tailored approach to diet guidance based on individual subpopulations’ unique characteristics, which include dietary intake and food composition, genetics, socioeconomic and psychosocial characteristics, food environments, cultural factors, physical activity and health status.
The Nutrition Hubs will be located at three Land-grant Universities: University of Hawaii, Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Utah State University.
“USDA’s Land-grant University partners are the perfect place to house these three new Nutrition Hubs because of the experience they have building their communities through education and Extension outreach programming,” said Dr. Chavonda Jacobs-Young, Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics and USDA's Chief Scientist. “Their goal will be to better understand the real-world opportunities and challenges around food, nutrition and diet-related health disparities, and to develop coordinated science-based solutions and resources for their populations.”
Among the goals of the Nutrition Hubs is to stimulate and catalyze cross-cutting and interdisciplinary work among scientists and stakeholders, using highly interdisciplinary approaches and human-centered program designs.
The Pacific Nutrition Hub, located at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, will enhance nutrition capacity in the U.S. Affiliated Pacific Region through data-driven strategies and professional trainings tailored for the area’s Native populations that are culturally and biologically distinct with Native languages and customs.
The Healthy Living for Hispanic Communities USDA Nutrition Hub at the Texas A&M Institute for Advancing Health through Agriculture will improve food and nutrition security, reduce diet-related disparities and improve population health in Hispanic communities.
Utah State University’s Western Region Nutrition Security Collaborative will foster interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration to address barriers such as structural inequalities and improve equitable access to health-promoting foods.
