A policy-relevant research blueprint for building a healthier food system: The 2009 Food Systems and Public Health Conference

Ninety of the nation's leading researchers and thinkers gathered April 1-3, 2009 at an invite-only national conference, titled "Food Systems and Public Health: Linkages to Achieve Healthier Diets and Healthier Communities". This research conference, sponsored by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and involving the food system, food, agriculture, and agriculture policy and practices, worked to identify research opportunities whose results could be used to develop potentially successful public and private policy interventions within the food/agricultural and health systems that: a) Promote healthy diets that are as local as feasible and reduce child and adult obesity; b) Address health disparities by developing equal access to good food in communities across America; and c) Promote diversification of agricultural production in scale, production practices, products grown, and farmers in communities across America. This presentation by one of the conference co-hosts and organizers, will review the conference proceedings, background papers, and chiefly discuss research recommendations of the conference's working groups.