3 Regional Led Convening Tool Kit

Form Approved

OMB #0990-0379

Exp. Date 08/30/2023

White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health

Toolkit for Regional Led Convenings

Introduction

Millions of Americans struggle with hunger. Millions more struggle with diet-related diseases—like heart disease and diabetes—which are some of the leading causes of death and disability in the U.S. And the toll is not distributed equally, disproportionately impacting underserved communities, including many Black, Latino, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans, low-income families, LGBTQI+ families, and rural Americans. Lack of access to healthy and affordable foods is one of many factors impacting hunger and diet-related diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated these challenges.

This September, the Biden-Harris Administration will host the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health to drive solutions to these challenges. The goal is to:

End hunger and increase healthy eating and physical activity by 2030 so that fewer Americans experience diet-related diseases, such as diabetes, obesity, and hypertension.

The Biden-Harris Administration will announce a plan at the Conference to catalyze the public and private sectors around a coordinated strategy to accelerate progress and drive transformative change in the U.S. to end hunger, improve nutrition and physical activity, and close the disparities surrounding them. The Biden-Harris Administration wants to hear your ideas and stories to help inform the conference and strategy.

About the Toolkit

This toolkit is designed to help you facilitate conversations with your community, other organizations, or individuals. Your ideas will be used in developing and implementing a national strategy. Inside this toolkit you will find questions to help guide your discussions as well as a description of five pillars for achieving the goal of ending hunger and increasing healthy eating and physical activity so that fewer Americans experience diet-related diseases.

Instructions for Using the Toolkit

Please use the questions below to guide your conversations. You may choose to provide ideas for one pillar, multiple pillars, or all of the pillars. We ask that your recommendations be as specific as possible. For example, if a program is not working, why not and how can we improve it? If there is a gap in a program, what is the gap and how do we address it? If a specific policy change could help end hunger, increase healthy eating and/or increase physical activity, what is it?

Your ideas can be shared at www.whitehouse.gov/hungerhealthconference. When submitting your ideas, please describe who participated in your convening. Please submit your ideas no later than July 15, 2022, to ensure they are considered. Comments are also welcome sooner.

Pillars and Questions

Pillars

The five pillars below define the scope of White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. They are meant to help guide your efforts to identify actions that can be taken across all sectors—the Federal government; civil society; the private sector; local, state, territory, and Tribal governments; and others. Across each of these pillars, we are especially interested in actions that will eliminate disparities and support individuals and communities that are impacted by hunger and diet-related disease, including communities of color, rural communities, the disability community, older adults, LGBTQI+ persons, military families, military veterans, and others. Everyone working together will allow us to achieve the goal of ending hunger and increasing healthy eating and physical activity so that fewer Americans experience diet-related diseases.

• Improve food access and affordability: End hunger by making it easier for everyone – including urban, suburban, rural, and Tribal communities – to access and afford food by, for example, expanding eligibility for and increasing participation in food assistance programs and improving transportation options to places where food is available.

• Integrate nutrition and health: Prioritize the role of nutrition and food security in overall health, including disease prevention and management, and ensure our health care system addresses the nutrition-related needs of all people.

• Empower all consumers to make and have access to healthy choices: Foster environments that enable all people to easily make informed healthy choices, increase access to healthy food, encourage healthy workplace and school policies, and invest in public messaging and education campaigns that are culturally-appropriate and resonate with specific communities.

• Support physical activity for all: Make it easier for people to be more physically active, ensure everyone has access to safe places to be physically active, increase awareness of the benefits of physical activity, and conduct research on and measure physical activity.

• Enhance nutrition and food security research: Improve nutrition metrics, data collection, and research to inform nutrition and food security policy, particularly on issues of equity, access, and disparities.

Questions

Consider the following questions as you guide your discussion about each pillar:

1. How has hunger or diet-related disease impacted you or your loved ones?

2. What specific actions should the U.S. federal government, including the Executive Branch and Congress, take to achieve each pillar? What are the opportunities and barriers to achieving the actions you are recommending?

3. What specific actions should local, state, territory and Tribal governments; the private sector; civil society; and others take to achieve each pillar?

4. What are opportunities for public and private sector partners to work together to achieve each pillar?

5. What are innovative, successful activities happening at the local, state, territory and Tribal levels that could inform actions at the Federal level?

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