Michigan’s motto, “If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you,” is a familiar phrase referencing the state’s geographical attributes and beauty – but it could also be applied to food. According to the Michigan Farm Bureau, Michigan leads the nation in producing many crops, including asparagus, certain bean varieties like black and cranberry beans, cucumbers, tart cherries and squash. All residents should be able to find our state’s bounty just by looking around them. But the fact is, many Michiganders can’t access healthy, affordable foods that can improve or support their health.
Feeding America reports that approximately 1.5 million Michiganders struggled with having enough to eat in 2023 – 400,000 of whom were children. Food insecurity is caused by a number of factors, including poverty, lack of affordable housing, lack of access to affordable healthy food, chronic health conditions and systemic racial discrimination. All of these challenges have significant impacts on individuals’ health, coping abilities and childhood development.
The situation seems grim – but hope is on the horizon. The Food as Medicine movement in Michigan is growing rapidly, and deservedly so. Food as medicine programs show promise in increasing engagement with preventive health services. However, assessing their broad impact on long-term health measures and patient outcomes is challenging due to how different programs are measured and the many external factors that affect an individual’s health beyond nutrition. However, if Michigan health plans, healthcare providers, community agencies, state and local governments and charitable organizations can come together and embrace effective, well-resourced programs across the continuum, they could change the health and lives of hundreds of thousands of residents. PSC believes that implementing more food as medicine programs that have sustainable funding, engaged stakeholders, measures that matter and committed leadership can produce meaningful effective data that can be used to build scalable, impactful programs in future years.
Hunger is an uphill battle, for both the individual and the service providers. We know that people, particularly older adults (8.4% of Michigan seniors are food insecure), regularly face the difficult choice of paying for food or paying for medicine, which can lead to trouble managing costly chronic illnesses like kidney disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. We also know that children who are food insecure underperform in school and struggle with poorer health.
PSC believes that food as medicine programs with sustainable funding, engaged stakeholders, measures that matter, and committed relationships can produce meaningful effective data to build scalable and impactful programs in future years.
This October 7 and 8, PSC is excited to be part of the inaugural Michigan Food as Medicine Summit and contribute to addressing the challenge of feeding more Michiganders.
The conversations around sustainable funding structures, network-building and collaboration, medically tailored meals, program evaluation and Medicaid’s programming all promise to convene the right groups of passionate people around these critical topics. We look forward to supporting organizations and agencies that engage in projects to feed Michiganders in a way that supports their health needs!
What’s being done about it? In Michigan, there are numerous organizations and agencies dedicated to feeding our residents. When it comes to food as medicine, what began a decade ago as rare instances of health plans and providers teaming up to issue and pay for food prescriptions has become an industry-wide trend in the healthcare sector aimed at enhancing access, coverage and partnerships for healthy food to support individuals’ health needs.
The latest step in this evolution of food as medicine is the launch of Michigan Medicaid’s In Lieu of Services program. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is encouraging eligible Medicaid health plans to provide additional services that support beneficiaries’ nutritional needs. MDHHS is working to enroll health plans and food providers into the program, which MDHHS says could increase Medicaid beneficiaries’ access to the right type of food supports for their personal health needs. This is a program to monitor closely; time will tell whether the structure supports ample participation and measurable, successful patient outcomes.
At PSC, our health and human services practice identified food insecurity as a top public policy priority to support broader health improvement in Michigan. In recent years, PSC has engaged in numerous projects that involve food insecurity or access through efforts like assessing community health needs, evaluating programs and facilitating community conversations. Working closely with the Michigan Farmers Market Association, Oakland County and other partners, we’ve studied and supported prescription for health programs while also working to expand produce prescription programs throughout Michigan. We want to be part of the solution to better addressing food insecurity in the years to come by bringing together the right partners with the necessary data and resources.
