Integrating health, nutrition, and food security: Making the case

October 11-12, 2007 . Cambridge, Massachusetts

The Institute for Health and Social Justice at Partners In Health recently hosted a conference on Integrating health, nutrition, and food security: Making the case. Below are the presentations (in PDF format) from the conference sessions.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Partners In Health and 15 other participating organizations and individuals issued a Conference Statement calling for united action to design, implement and advocate for meaningful and rapid change in three areas: ensuring good nutrition for all children during the "window of vulnerability" under the age of two; access to adequate and nutritious food for people suffering from HIV and TB; and addressing micronutrient needs through supplementation, agricultural planning and production, and integration into health programs.

Day 1: Thursday, October 11

Session I:  Food as Treatment
Food as an integral component of disease treatment:  Presentation and discussion of successful nutritional interventions with measurable impact on the incidence and severity of specific diseases (Moderator: Joia Mukherjee, Partners In Health/Harvard University)

• Christine Wanke, Tufts University
  Overview of nutritional issues
• Kevin Sztam, Columbia University
  Macronutrients as part of HIV treatment
• Milton Tectonidis, MSF
  RUF in the management of malnutrition in situations of high prevalence
• Suneetha Kadiyala, IFPRI
  Integrating nutrition security with treatment of people living with HIV:  Lessons from Kenya
• Martin Bloem, WFP 
  The role of food for malnutrition and HIV/AIDS/TB 

Session II:  Linking Nutrition, Health and Agriculture
Linking soil, plant, and animal nutrition using practical examples and a discussion of how to forge some of the needed linkages between the nutrition, health and agriculture sectors. (Moderator: Alice Pell, Cornell University)

• Kathleen Colverson, Heifer International
  Livestock as a tool for community development
• John Duxbury, Cornell University
  Linking good nutrition, health and soil fertility
• Chuck Nicholson, Cornell University
  Manipulating the food system using a systems approach
• Alice Pell, Cornell University
  Food, Agriculture and Nutrition:  Successful Integration 
  

Day 2:  Friday, October 12

Session III:  Food as Prevention: 
Nutritional interventions as a “vaccine” to reduce morbidity and mortality: Presentation and discussion of successful nutritional interventions with measurable impact on the incidence and severity of specific diseases.  Food security as population-based risk mitigation: Presentation and discussion of demonstrated decreased disease risk with improved food security. (Moderator: Jennifer Coates, Tufts University)

• Michael Loevinsohn, Applied Ecology Associates
  HIV, Hunger and Livelihoods: Have We Missed Something?
• Marie Ruel, IFPRI
  Blanket food assistance with behavior change communication to prevent malnutrition in Haiti
• Robert Patterson, The Growing Connection/FAO/UN
  Innovative horticulture and low-cost sustainable food production, nutrition and entrepreneurship
• Andrew Marx, Partners In Health for FAO
  Health, nutrition and livelihoods
• Paul McNamara, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  The prevalence and nature of food insecurity in an HIV-infected AIDS population in Dehli, India

Session IV:  Policy, Funding and Programming
Presentation and discussion of the role of local production and sourcing of food aid: Resource-allocation to foster integration of health and nutrition programs; and greater efforts towards increased food security for the most vulnerable populations. (Moderators: Patrick Webb, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University; Paul Farmer, Partners In Health/Harvard University)

• Donna Barry, Partners In Health
  Policy overview
• Stephen Jarrett, UNICEF 
  Large scale RUTF production and distribution
• Paul Roux, Kidzpositive, University of Cape Town 
  A point of care income generation project gives access to food security
• Ina Schoenberg, Save the Children
  Food security and HIV-AIDS: lessons learned from project operations
• Michele Moloney-Kitts, OGAC
  Integrating food security into PEPFAR project
• Bob Bell, CARE
  Resource transfers and nutrition – role of markets
• Andrew Thorne-Lyman, WFP
  Developing more sustainable funding strategies for food assistance
• Jim Yong Kim, Harvard University.
  Working towards policy change

This conference was sponsored by the Institute for Health and Social Justice at Partners In Health in collaboration with the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health.