PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (February 24, 2023) — Over 30 million people in the U.S. experience food insecurity, and Texas has some of the highest rates in the country. About 13% of households in the state – or nearly 4 million individuals – are unable to access adequate amounts of safe and nutritious food to live healthy lives. Understandably, food insecurity has been linked to a variety of mental and physical health concerns, including chronic diseases – “the leading causes of death and disability in America,” according to the CDC, and the main drivers of healthcare costs.
To help address these issues, Texas A&M AgriLife launched its Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture (IHA), the world’s first academic institute to combine precision nutrition, responsive agriculture, and healthy living research to reduce healthcare costs and diet-related chronic diseases, in environmentally and economically sustainable ways.
Janet Antwi, Ph.D., assistant professor of nutrition and dietetics
Now, the IHA is sponsoring research at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) focused on reducing food insecurity and healthcare concerns for students and communities throughout Texas. The institute awarded $100,000 to PVAMU’s Janet Antwi, Ph.D., assistant professor of nutrition and dietetics, and her collaborators – including the Integrated Food Security Research Center (IFSRC), – for the “Produce Prescription Program” project.
Dr. Antwi’s research project aims to evaluate the impact of incentive prescriptions of fresh fruits and vegetables in addition to nutrition educational opportunities to increase procurement and consumption of nutritious foods, reduce individual and household food insecurity, and decrease healthcare usage and associated costs.
“This collaborative research effort underscores PVAMU’s commitment to the health and well-being of our students, community, and state,” said PVAMU Vice President of Research and Innovation Magesh Rajan, Ph.D., P.E., MBA, “while reinforcing the University’s reputation as one of the leading institutions studying food insecurity in the country.”
“I’m excited about this award because it paves the way for us to implement a nutrition research intervention that will help address food insecurity among college students who are underserved, and in the long-term, prevent chronic diseases in this population,” said Dr. Antwi, who teaches in PVAMU’s College of Agriculture and Human Sciences. Her research interests include nutrition and physical activity in obesity for low-income and underserved populations, Type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, and international nutrition interventions for malnutrition and food insecurity in community and clinical settings.
The grant from the IHA will enable the hiring of a postdoctoral research fellow to support the project’s objectives, and PVAMU students will also have the opportunity to participate. “Undergraduate students will be trained and mentored to assist in the entire project from design of study materials, data collection and analyses, and manuscript publications,” Dr. Antwi explained. “This is a way to enhance their experiential learning and hone their skills in research to address the obesity epidemic and its related comorbidities.”
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By Leigh Badrigian