Table 5.

Build Support and Political Will: Grocery Gap II

In 2001, the Food Trust, a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing access to healthy food focused its policy change efforts on closing the “grocery gap” and expanding access to healthy, nutritious food in underserved communities. The Food Trust spearheaded a campaign to increase the number of fresh food outlets in underserved communities and worked to unite community and political leaders and other key stakeholders from diverse sectors around its policy goal.

Recognizing that building support in the community and among local political leaders was critical to its success, the Food Trust focused its efforts on outreach and education. Its members established a telephone campaign targeting supermarket representatives, children’s health-related non-profit organizations, academic institutions, and public health departments and other governmental organizations. They also organized meetings to gauge the existing understanding of the connection between supermarkets, health, underserved communities and measures that could be implemented to increase access to healthy food. Policy advocates convened local task-force comprised of local organizations and key stakeholders and engaged and educated local decision makers. Building support across a broad, diverse group of stakeholders ultimately led to a successful policy change effort.

^aKarpyn A, Manon M, Treuhaft S, Giang T, Harries C, McCoubrey K. Policy solutions to the ‘grocery gap’. Health Aff. 2010 Mar–Apr;29(3):473–80.