ANDREA SPOOL-WHITE Collaborations between the nonprofit health care provider Novant Health and corporate partners are making healthy food available to people at risk of food insecurity. Personal health goes beyond routine checkups. Studies from Novant Health show that more than 80% of a person’s overall health is determined by various social determinants — often related […]
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| ANDREA SPOOL-WHITE |
| Collaborations between the nonprofit health care provider Novant Health and corporate partners are making healthy food available to people at risk of food insecurity. |
Personal health goes beyond routine checkups.
Studies from Novant Health show that more than 80% of a person’s overall health is determined by various social determinants — often related to food insecurities. Since 2022, all Novant Health patients are screened for food insecurities and nearly 2 million indicated they were. These individuals are given food packs to help feed them and their families for four days.
Through Novant Health partnerships, such as the Jumpman Invitational, a Dec. 17-18 men’s and women’s college basketball showcase at Spectrum Center, they are able to make strides toward ending food insecurity.
“We know that about 14% of North Carolinians are food insecure,” said Dr. Bill Hammill of Novant Health, “meaning that they either sometimes or often don’t have enough food for their families. So, we embarked on an aggressive program to screen every single patient. … From January to the end of October we screened about 1.2 million patients and a little over 13% of those screened positive.”
The food pack initiative is just the beginning. For every free throw made at the Jumpman Invitational, $100 will be donated by Compass Group, a food service company, to the Novant Health food security fund.
“With the things going on with Jumpman, that is our long-term way of saying that we can meet [patients’] short-term needs,” Hammill said. “It is great to partner alongside them. The other thing that we recognize through this is that food insecurity is kind of a door opener, meaning that if they’re food insecure, then there are very likely to be other insecurities in other social determinants as well.”
The Jumpman Invitational is one of many partners Novant Health has to help combat food insecurity.
“Along with Jumpman, we’ve partnered with Mecklenburg County where we had a program where we helped with food for seniors of color,” Hammill said. “We would distribute produce prescription cards for seniors of color that were at risk. We also started a program for pregnant moms that screened positive for food insecurity and would help provide meals through the pregnancy and a few months after the baby was delivered. We’ve had partnerships with Humana and Centene to create community health worker programs where we can try to help close the [cycle] of food insecurities.”
Hammill said ending food insecurity also means helping people plug into the resources they need on a consistent basis. While Novant Health continues its food program and other partnerships, eventually they hope insurance companies will get on board with initiatives for at-risk groups.
“We’re going to continue to focus on emergency food packs,” he said. “We’re going to continue to partner with our community partners that can provide other long-term solutions. But I think the holy grail of this that’s going to be so critical is understanding that food is medicine.”
