Highlights & Awards
White House Recognizes H2HC’s $1M Prizes for Innovation in Support of National Challenge to End Hunger and Build Healthy Communities
The White House has recognized the Hunger to Health Collaboratory (H2HC) for its commitment to award $1 million over five years (2023 – 2027) through its Prizes for Innovation. The H2HC Prizes for Innovation identify and highlight innovative food and nutrition work that offers promising, upstream models and replicable, scalable solutions that significantly advance health equity in communities throughout the U.S.
In 2023, H2HC awarded its two inaugural $100,000 Prizes for Innovation to Alameda County Recipe4Health and DC Central Kitchen.
Hunger to Health Collaboratory Announces Recipe4Health as One of Two Recipients of Inaugural $100,000 ‘Prizes for Innovation’ Winners
October 31, 2023
H2HC is Awarding its First Two Prizes to Alameda County Recipe4Health and DC Central Kitchen
The Hunger to Health Collaboratory (H2HC) is an innovative national model that convenes cross-sector thought leaders to explore systemic solutions to food, nutrition, and health challenges with a focus on equity and the social drivers of health.
Following the historic 2022 White House Conference and Food, Nutrition, and Health, and to support the Biden-Harris Administration’s call to end hunger by 2030, H2HC has launched its inaugural Prizes for Innovation. The Prizes for Innovation identify and highlight creative, systemic efforts to address food and nutrition inequities and advance health equity in communities throughout the United States.
Alameda County Recipe4Health and DC Central Kitchen are the first two organizations to win the H2HC Prizes for Innovation.
Alameda County Recipe4Health (https://recipe4health.acgov.org/) is a nationally recognized, award-winning model that integrates food-based interventions into healthcare settings (Food as Medicine) to treat, prevent. and reverse chronic conditions; to address food and nutrition insecurity and other social determinants of health; and to improve health and racial equity. By sourcing the food from BIPOC organic and regenerative farmers, Recipe4Health leverages healthcare and agriculture to generate multipliers for human health, economic health, climate health, and equity.
“We are grateful to H2HC for highlighting models that are intentionally cross sectoral and systemic. Alameda County Recipe4Health brings together a variety of ingredients–Federally Qualified Health Centers, a local farm, County agencies, community-based health coaches, and a Medicaid Health plan–to prescribe patients nutritious organic and regenerative food and health coaching support.”
Roundtable on Food as Medicine convened by Congressmember Barbara Lee and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra
February 24th, 2023 – At this Food as Medicine Roundtable entitled, “Bridging Food as Medicine, Sourcing of Food (Organic and Regeneratively), and Equity: Force Multipliers for Health”, Dr. Steven Chen of Alameda County Recipe4Health raised and answered the following two fundamental questions for the “food as medicine” movement taking off across the country:
- Where does the “food” in “Food as Medicine” come from?
- How does bridging “Food as Medicine”, “Sourcing of Food (Organically and Regeneratively)”, and Equity become force multipliers for health?
Come to the Table: USDA's National Nutrition Security and Healthcare Summit
October 25th, 2022 – Alameda County Recipe4Health Chief Medical Officer Steven Chen was invited to attend the “Come to the Table” panel at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Headquarters in Washington, DC. The goal of this summit was to build on the momentum of the recent and historic White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health and identify ways healthcare, community, and policy leaders can work together to implement the vision of the Biden-Harris Administration’s National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. It featured remarks by USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, and members of Congress, and included overviews and panel discussion with national experts committed to ending hunger and reducing diet-related chronic conditions and disparities.
White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health
September 28th, 2022 – Recipe4Health, represented by Chief Medical Officer Dr. Steven Chen, attended the historic White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health in Washington, DC hosted by the Biden-Harris Administration. The Conference unveiled a National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health to accelerate progress in fighting hunger, diet-related chronic conditions, and health disparities, with the end goal of building a healthier and more equitable future for the nation. Notably, President Biden and the White House strategy called to expand Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries access to “food as medicine” interventions.
ALL IN Food as Medicine (Recipe4Health) awarded inaugural 2022 Community Partnership Award
The 2022 Community Partnership Award is given in recognition of service to and advancement of health equity in Alameda County. Achieving health equity requires valuing everyone equally with focused and ongoing societal efforts to address avoidable inequalities, historical and contemporary injustices, and social determinants of health — and to eliminating disparities in health and health care.
Source: Alameda Health System Foundation
Recipe4Health was honored with a “Best in Health” 2021 NACo Achievement Award
December 13, 2021 – National Association of Counties (NACo) awarded Alameda County’s “Recipe4Health” (R4H) initiative a prestigious 2021 Achievement Award for the category of “Best in Health.” Selected out of 844 total entries across 28 states, R4H was recognized for its outstanding efforts to transform health care and health outcomes throughout the County.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra visit to Native American Health Center
October 29, 2021 – Supervisor Wilma Chan, Alameda County District 3, convened a visit and facilitated a discussion with U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA-13), Alameda County Recipe4Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Steven Chen, and community partners at Native American Health Center (NAHC) to learn how community partnerships are being leveraged to strengthen the health and wellness safety net through the COVID response and beyond.
Dr. Chen highlighted how Alameda County’s Recipe4Health initiative creates intentional partnerships between healthcare (clinics), community-based organizations (health coaches), and food systems (farms) to improve outcomes and processes across these sectors. Dr. Chen shared how this model can be scaled across the nation, building bridges between pre-existing work in these three sectors.
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Supervisor Wilma Chan and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra pose for a picture with Native American Health Center staff.
Image source: Native American Health Center
