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Creating Integrated Strategies for Increasing Access to Healthy Affordable Food in Urban Communities: A Case Study of Intersecting Food Initiatives

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Abstract

In New York and other cities, substantial evidence documents that community food environments interact with inequitable allocation of power, wealth, and services to shape the distribution of diet-related diseases and food insecurity. This case study shows how one Central Brooklyn community organization, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, has launched multiple coordinated food initiatives in order to reduce the burden of food-related health problems and boost community development. The report used standard case study methods to document the implementation of the New York City Food and Fitness Partnership in Central Brooklyn. The case study shows how two distinct strands of activities, a Farm to Early Care Program that ultimately brought fresh food to 30 child care centers, and a food hub that sought to make fresh local food more available in Central Brooklyn, intersected and reinforced each other. It also shows how organizational, community, and municipal resources and policies in some cases supported these initiatives and in others served as obstacles. Finally, the case study shows that multiple coordinated strategies have the potential to empower low-income Black and Latino communities to act to make local food environments healthier and more equitable.

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Acknowledgments

Brooklyn Food and Fitness was funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation as part of its National Food and Fitness Program. We gratefully acknowledge the many insights provided by participants in the National and Brooklyn programs. All views expressed in this report are those of the authors, not their institutions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. City University of New York School of Public Health, New York, NY, USA

    Michele Silver & Nicholas Freudenberg

  2. Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, Brooklyn, NY, USA

    Afia Bediako, Tracey Capers & Aysu Kirac

Authors
  1. Michele Silver
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  2. Afia Bediako
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  3. Tracey Capers
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  4. Aysu Kirac
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  5. Nicholas Freudenberg
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Correspondence to Nicholas Freudenberg.

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Silver, M., Bediako, A., Capers, T. et al. Creating Integrated Strategies for Increasing Access to Healthy Affordable Food in Urban Communities: A Case Study of Intersecting Food Initiatives. J Urban Health 94, 482–493 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-017-0178-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-017-0178-6

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