Strategies for Improving Nutrition in Inner-City Populations
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PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY (E KLODAS, SECTION EDITOR)
Strategies for Improving Nutrition in Inner-City Populations Brian Clark 1
&
Jamario Skeete 1 & Kim Williams Sr 1
Accepted: 2 September 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Purpose of Review The social, economic, cultural, and historic reasons for why inner-city communities have struggled with poor nutrition and health outcomes are complex. Creating successful programs to address these problems requires a better understanding of the gaps that exist and formulating solutions to improve access to nutritious food options. Recent Findings Studies have demonstrated that aggressive evidence-based nutrition can decrease factors linked to cardiovascular diseases, but improving access to these nutritious resources and prioritizing health literacy and behavior modification related to meal choices are just as essential. Government programs and community interventions have shown promise through creating supermarkets, farmers’ markets, and community gardens, but not all inner-city areas have such programs in place. Summary The poor state of inner-city nutrition and health is a true public health crisis. Creation of innovative strategies to improve education on and sustainable access to nutritious foods is essential in order to improve health disparities and outcomes. Keywords Nutrition . Minority health . Inner-city . Prevention . Public health . Cardiovascular disease
Introduction Over the last century, across the USA, significant strides have been made in improving food security and nutrition [1•]. This in part has translated to gains in health outcomes and increased life expectancy among the American populace [2]. However, these benefits have not been universal, with some segments of the population, particularly those residing in poor, underserved, inner-city communities not having consistent access to high-quality, nutritious foods [3•]. The converse is often true in these settings, where calorie-dense, inexpensive foods with suboptimal nutritious content are widely available and highly consumed [4, 5]. Manifestations of this lack of nutrition equality includes in part the increasing prevalence of This article is part of the Topical Collection on Public Health Policy * Brian Clark [email protected] Jamario Skeete [email protected] Kim Williams, Sr [email protected] 1
Division of Cardiology, Rush University Medical Center, 1725 West Congress Pkwy, Suite 345, Chicago, IL 60612, USA
chronic non-communicable disease, such as hypertension and diabetes, as well as increasing levels of obesity among people residing in underserved communities [6•]. The link between poor diets and an increased burden of chronic, non-communicable diseases is well established. For instance, in the USA, data derived from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys between 1999–2020 and 2009–2012 demonstrated that suboptimal diet played a role in as much as 45% of all the cardiometabolic deaths that occurred in the year 2012 [
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