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Prevention of Diet-Related Diseases and Disparities

Importance of Preventing Diet-Related Diseases and Disparities

Diet-related illnesses including cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers are the leading source of poor health in the United States. These illnesses also negatively affect worker productivity, military readiness, healthcare spending, and health disparities. Food insecurity and diet-related illnesses often co-exist. Both are interrelated with challenges and opportunities in the use of natural resources. Across all life stages, research, education, extension, and innovation could potentially improve our understanding of the various factors contributing to the prevention of diet-related diseases and disparities.

The Biden-Harris Administration hosted a historic White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health and published a corresponding National Strategy to end hunger, improve nutrition and physical activity, and reduce diet-related diseases and disparities. USDA is integral to this strategy and has a core priority to tackle food and nutrition insecurity. The President and the First Lady’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative also aims to end cancer as we know it. To help, the USDA’s Research, Education, and Economics Mission Area created the Agricultural Science Center of Excellence for Nutrition and Diet (ASCEND) for Better Health initiative which launched its first USDA Nutrition Hub in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in partnership with Southern University and NIFA is working to add additional USDA Nutrition Hubs with an emphasis on using precision nutrition.

Precision nutrition is a new concept that aims to harness emerging findings from nutritional science into meaningful and clinically relevant dietary recommendations for individuals and population sub-groups. Nutrition science encompasses research examining multiple synergistic levels of influence: dietary habits, genetic background, health status, microbiome, metabolism, food environment, physical activity, socioeconomics, psychosocial characteristics, and environmental exposures, among others. Precision nutrition, like precision medicine, aims to capitalize on the exponential growth that is occurring in technology, genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics platforms, along with personalized and environmental sensors, and other big-data resources.

NIFA’s Impact

The USDA works to ensure a safe, nutritious, and secure food supply while also developing, delivering, and disseminating evidence-based nutrition education and promotion to prevent diet-related diseases and disparities, improve health, and advance food and nutrition security. NIFA recognizes that nutrition could be one of the most cost-effective approaches to address many of the societal, environmental, and economic challenges faced across the globe today. NIFA partners with the Land-Grant University System and government, private, and non-profit organizations to support science aiming to advance our understanding of what is in the foods and beverages we produce and how do our products best serve their final users – either humans or animals – all over the world. Our agency also invests in developing nutrition scientists across all stages of professional development and building their capacity to work across diverse disciplines and entities to advance nutritional sciences research, policy, and practice.

Key NIFA prevention of diet-related diseases and disparities programs include: 

Additional Relevant NIFA Programs

Relevant Federal Collaborations

National Institutes of Health

In collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), NIFA has developed and funded innovative joint funding announcements (e.g., PAR-18-727, PAR-15-024, RFA-DK-20-007, RFA-DK-20-005) to advance our understanding of food specific molecular profiles, and biomarkers of food and nutrient intake and dietary exposure. Using a complex of “omics” methods, these findings help us better understand factors influencing inter-individual variation in response to foods and food groups recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, informing both individual and population federal precision nutrition messaging for healthier food and beverage intake.

Cancer Moonshot Federal Prevention and Screening Nutrition Relevant Resources

As part of the Biden-Harris Cancer Moonshot, NIFA works with HHS and VA colleagues to end cancer as we know it. This includes compiling and elevating relevant resources such as the following:

Federal Food as Medicine Collaborative

NIFA is a part of the HHS led Federal Food as Medicine Collaborative and has helped elevate relevant NIFA assets to support food as medicine initiative including but not limited our supports within prevention of diet-related diseases and disparities as outlined above, food and nutrition security, nutrition education, local and regional food systems, and food loss and waste, along with consultation on relevant GusNIP resources and connections.

Women’s Health

NIFA as part of a broader USDA team collaborates with federal partners including but not limited to the Department of Defense, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Veterans Affairs on advancing women’s health research and innovation as encouraged by President Biden’s Executive Order. As part of NIFA’s women’s health efforts, NIFA has modified AFRI where possible, included a call for women’s health focus within the recent call for three additional USDA Nutrition Hubs, and is sponsoring a women’s health-oriented workshop.


Consumer Resources

Nutrition.gov is a USDA sponsored website that offers credible information to help you make healthful eating choices.

Nutrition Professional Resources

The USDA National Agricultural Library’s Food and Nutrition Information Center provides the food and nutrition professional community access to a wide range of trustworthy food and nutrition resources from both government and non-government sources. Another USDA NAL resource is the Historical Dietary Guidance Digital Collection.

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