Access to Healthy Food

The Convergence Partnership uses investments, research, and other efforts to change policy and develop solutions to problems plaguing communities—from how food is distributed and sold to how neighborhoods are built to the transportation systems that serve them.

Access to fresh and affordable food is a starting point to a healthy diet. Lack of access to healthy foods has affected both low-income urban and rural communities for decades. Several studies have documented that low-income neighborhoods have far fewer supermarkets compared to middle-income neighborhoods. They also indicate that African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods are also less likely than white neighborhoods to have full-service supermarkets.

Advocates are addressing these disparities from multiple fronts, from improving environmental factors that contribute to obesity to implementing new policies and strengthening existing federal and local supplemental nutrition assistance programs.

• The Healthy Food Financing Initiative
• EBT

To keep informed of this effort, other Convergence Partnership efforts, and the activities of our partners and the field, please sign up for the Healthy People, Healthy Places newsletter.