Planning grants awarded for competitive proposals testing efficacy of food is medicine

Building on its work to study effective ways to incorporate healthy food into care for diet-related chronic disease, the American Heart Association, a global force changing the future of health for all, today announced grant awards of nearly $1.2 million to 12 scientific researchers as part of its Health Care by Food™ initiative, a pioneering 10-year endeavor to make food is medicine reimbursable, scalable and sustainable.

“It is particularly important to test food is medicine program features that insurers may find important as part of coverage decisions,” said Kevin Volpp, M.D., Ph.D., American Heart Association volunteer, scientific lead for the Health Care by Food initiative and founding director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School. “This initiative is working to address the crisis of chronic disease by incorporating healthy food into health care in ways that could help millions of patients nationwide.”