Food Is Medicine
Innovations in the Field of Food is Medicine
May 9, 2018 1:00 p.m. Eastern
Cosponsored with Grantmakers in Health
- Download speaker presentations HERE
- Listen to the webinar recording HERE
- Learn more about Community Servings’ Health Insurance Claims Data study with Massachusetts General Hospital in Health Affairs HERE
Proper nutrition is integral for disease management for People Living With HIV/AIDS, as it helps PLWHA maintain a healthy body weight and withstand the side effects of medications, improves immune system functioning, and enhances overall quality of life. Join this webinar to learn about the latest innovations and leadership efforts in the “Food is Medicine” movement, including Community Servings’ launch of the Massachusetts Food is Medicine State Plan and the national Food is Medicine Accelerator. This webinar will explore how grantmakers have helped to enable these important field-building initiatives and what can be done to advance these interventions locally and beyond.
Speaker Bios
Sarah Downer
Sarah Downer is a Clinical Instructor at the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School and directs the Center’s Whole Person Care Initiative, which seeks to improve care for underserved individuals at every point of interaction with the healthcare system. She works with clients and partners to nurture innovations in healthcare delivery and financing, scale successful interventions, convene powerful coalitions, translate emerging research into comprehensive and compelling resources for policy-makers, and to explore the short and long-term implications of healthcare trends. Ms. Downer also leads the Center’s Social Determinants of Health Law Lab, a special project dedicated to analyzing novel legal issues that arise when the healthcare system interacts with patients in new ways. Ms. Downer has a BA from Harvard College and JD from Harvard Law School.
David Waters
David has been involved with Community Servings since its inception in 1989, moving from volunteer to board member, Board Chair, Director of Development, and eventually CEO, in 1999.Under David’s leadership, Community Servings has evolved from a small neighborhood meals program delivering dinner to 30 people, to a critical regional program providing 15 medically-tailored meals plans to 1,850 people with acute life-threatening illnesses, their dependents, and caregivers in 20 Massachusetts communities. He is the former Board Chair of the Association of Nutrition Service Agencies and is a founding member of the national Food Is Medicine Coalition. In recognition of his leadership and impact at Community Servings and within the Greater Boston community, David was named a Barr Foundation Fellow in 2017. A resident of Cambridge, he holds graduate degrees from Middlebury College and Boston University.
Reece P. Soltani
Reece is currently a Social Entrepreneur for Food Security with the AARP Foundation. Her position is a crosspollination of academic rigor and innovation toward building new products, programs and solutions to old problems for the low-income, 50+ population in the US. Prior to joining the Foundation she was a part of several non-profit start-ups and “tech-for-good” organizations, where she understood the dichotomy of financial services and how to harness the Internet for those at the bottom of the pyramid whilst at Kiva. Most recently, she graduated with an MSc in Global Health, Social Policy, from the London School of Economics and spent her field research in Cuba examining the healthcare system. She lived in Denmark while interning at the World Health Organization, and has a BA from University of California, Berkeley.