With RFK Jr. heading the main federal healthcare agency, better eating habits may become a national obsession.
That should prove timely for two Triangle-based health organizations that are teaming up to study how health coaching can help chronically ill people participating in the nation’s largest fruits and vegetables prescription program.
The study revolves around “Food is Medicine,’’ a national movement that provides produce to patients who may not have access or money for healthy food. Reinvestment Partners, a Durham nonprofit, operates the Eat Well program, launched seven years ago to provide patients with prepaid debit cards to buy produce at major retailers.
Reinvestment Partners is now partnering with Durham-based ZealCare, a spinoff of Duke Health, to explore the combination of health coaching by the hospital system and the Eat Well program. Starting midyear, the study will seek to understand how health coaching can improve the conditions of patients with congestive heart failure who are getting fruits and vegetables.
The partnership is aiming to improve “health outcomes and decrease overall health care costs in patients with serious chronic diseases,” ZealCare CEO Ralph Snyderman said in a release earlier this week.
“By coordinating healthy food with health coaching, we will have a greater impact on patient outcomes than either intervention alone,’’ said Peter Skillern, CEO of Reinvestment Partners, which is paying for the study. “Our goal is to help patients with CHF to live healthier lives.’’
Snyderman has been a medical professor at Duke University since 1989 and was chancellor for health affairs from 1989-2004 and CEO of the university’s health system from 1997 to 2004.
He and Duke med school researcher Connor Drake launched ZealCare three years ago after a spinoff from the university in 2002. It’s one of the 74 active startups originating from the university’s health system and med school, an effort headed by Duke’s Office for Translation and Commercialization.
The Eat Well program has served more than 150,000 patients across the U.S. and resulted in spending of more than $29 million on fruits and vegetables. It’s part of a movement that started six decades ago when a community health center in the Mississippi Delta prescribed healthy food as a remedy for children dying from infectious diarrhea and malnutrition.
“Decades later, many Americans still struggle to access and eat healthy food,’’ nonprofit FoodPrint posted online last year. “Despite the well-understood connection between diet and health and a clear understanding of the components of a healthy diet, approximately 90% of Americans eat less than the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables.’’
