Food systems and health disparities

Background: The United States has set a national goal to eliminate health disparities, but is far from reaching it. Methods: This presentation takes a food systems approach to understanding health disparities. It presents a conceptual model to aid in understanding the breadth of food system impacts. The model is supplemented by literature review on component topics. Results: The model presents connections between broad food system conditions and community food environments, describing how these relationships filter and refract through prisms of social disparities to generate and increase health disparities. The model also depicts interactions with demand factors in the social environment. Finally, the model indicates a separate food system route to health disparities via food production's environmental and occupational health impacts. The model presents a set of opportunity areas for food system participants to work on reducing disparities and increasing justice. Discussion: Through this model, we aim to create a broader understanding of how health disparities are linked not only to individual food consumption, not only to community food environments, but also to the broad food system and a range of processes, actors, and policies within it.