Advancing Food Justice Through Partnered Community-Driven Research

Advancing Food Justice Through Partnered Community-Driven Research – University of California San Diego and YMCA of San Diego County: This team will be led by Cheryl A.M. Anderson, Ph.D., M.P.H., M.S., FAHA, a professor and dean of the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at UC San Diego and Earl M. Felisme, Tri- Chair for the San Diego Childhood Obesity Initiative Community Council. The theme of their work is “flipping paradigms”. This team will re-imagine and re-orient the ways in which resources, information and wisdom flow between communities, academia and other institutions. They will advance food justice – the belief that everyone should have access to healthy and sustainable food – in California’s San Diego County through three core programs: a community-led granting program that funds community priorities; an academic-led scientific methods program to support community-led grants; and a postdoctoral training program. The struggle of not eating enough nutritious high-quality food, coupled with concerns related to economics, environment, housing, education, safety and discrimination can lead to poor health outcomes. The team’s vision is that everyone, everywhere will eat healthful diets and achieve cardiovascular health through research and collective action work that is community-driven, diverse and inclusive.

Aims List:

• Academic-led Project:  

• • Aim 1: Provide responsive research methods support to CBOs participating in the Community-Led Granting Program 

• • Aim 2: Identify methodological gaps and seek to address gaps, wherever possible.  

• • Aim 3: Develop a framework for translating insights from community-driven research to traditional biomedical research 

• Community-led Project:  

• • Aim 1: Co-create, implement, test, and iteratively refine a yearly food justice-focused granting program to support place-focused CBOs in conducting impactful community-driven research. 

• • Aim 2: Build CBO capacity to successfully apply for, implement, evaluate, and disseminate sustainable and impactful food justice interventions.  

• • Aim 3: Promote demonstrable improvements across San Diego County among our focal communities regarding advancing food justice.