Advancing Food as Medicine Research

Nourishing Our Community is an interprofessional research and innovation hub advancing the integration of food into healthcare. Through programs including the Teaching Kitchen, Therapeutic Food Pantry, Nourishing at Home, Rooftop Farm initiatives, and value aligned procurement efforts, Nourishing Our Community generates and translates evidence to improve health outcomes, strengthen food systems, and advance health equity.

Focus Areas

Our work spans the full translational continuum, including basic science, clinical research, implementation science, community participatory research, and population health research. We focus on the following key areas:

Food is Medicine preARC

The Food is Medicine preARC is a joint initiative between Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Boston University (BU) that brings together interdisciplinary researchers, clinicians, and implementation experts to advance the science and practice of food-based healthcare interventions.

Learn more about the FIM preARC

What is an Arc?

ARCs, or Affinity Research Collaboratives, are interdisciplinary research groups supported by the Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research that bring together investigators from multiple fields to address complex biomedical challenges through collaborative, convergence-based research.

Groups begin as a Pre-ARC, an exploratory phase where researchers refine a shared research theme through meetings and workshops with mentorship and seed funding support. After this phase, teams may apply for formal ARC designation and funding to advance interdisciplinary research and innovation.

FIM preARC

Food-based interventions, collectively known as Food is Medicine (FIM), are gaining national recognition as important strategies for preventing, managing, and reversing chronic disease. While the connection between nutrition and health is well established, integrating food and nutrition services into healthcare delivery remains an emerging field. FIM interventions have shown promise in addressing conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, fatty liver disease, and certain cancers across all stages of life.

Because food is not only medicinal, but also personal, cultural, and social, effective FIM interventions must address individual preferences, social determinants of health, and systemic inequities. This work requires an interdisciplinary, community-informed, and evidence-based research approach.

Interprofessional and Convergence Science

Food is Medicine research spans the full translational continuum, from foundational studies examining diet related mechanisms (T0), to clinical and implementation research evaluating feasibility, efficacy, and integration into healthcare systems (T1 to T3), to population and policy research focused on scalability, health equity, reimbursement, and systems change (T4 and T5). Advancing Food is Medicine requires continuous collaboration among researchers, healthcare providers, patients, community organizations, and policymakers to develop evidence based, culturally responsive, and equitable solutions.

Active Research Collaborations

WRAP

Overview: The Teaching Kitchen partners with BMC’s Wellness and Recovery After Psychosis (WRAP) Clinic to develop, deliver, and evaluate group-based lifestyle interventions for young adults with first-episode psychosis and their family members and caregivers. Funded by the Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Foundation, the interactive programs combine hands-on culinary skills, nutrition education, and physical activity led by a registered dietitian, with evaluation of feasibility, acceptability, nutrition knowledge, cooking self-efficacy, and mental health outcomes.

PI: Julia Browne, Hannah Brown

Study contact: Hannah.Brown2@bmc.org

Implementation of Food-Based Services

Overview: The HRSN Food Delivery Program provides culturally relevant, nutritious food to patients experiencing food insecurity. Building on its initial focus on families with newborns and infants, the program now also serves patients with cancer and malnutrition, reaching more than 250 households this year through partnerships with local grocers and farms.

PI: Olivia Thomas (Olivia.thomas@bmc.org)

Study contact: Olivia Thomas (Olivia.thomas@bmc.org)

Publications

2025 - 2026

Defining Culinary Medicine: A Call for Consensus on Competencies to Improve Nutrition

Lifestyle Medicine and Culinary Medicine: A Narrative Review of Important Synergies

Will a Programmatic Framework Integrating Food Is Medicine Achieve Value on Investment?

Food as medicine through the lenses of Food Access, Justice, and Sovereignty

Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies: Culinary and Lifestyle Medicine for PCOS and Preconception Health

Growing Healthy Hearts: a pilot randomized controlled trial of a digitally delivered gardening, cooking, and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet intervention for adults with cardiovascular risk factors

Evolving food as medicine programs to advance health equity: insights from two decades of practice

Participant Preferences to Inform the Development of Theory-Driven, Digitally Delivered Cooking Interventions Using the Behavior Change Wheel

Abstract P1145: Feasibility of a Culturally-tailored Diet and Physical Activity Intervention for Zimbabwean Immigrants in the US

2024

Thomas, O. W., Liang, L., Getzoff, E., Silver, S., Peters, J., & Fuentes, L. (2024, September). Enhancing cultural humility in food is medicine services: A mixed-methods investigation of patient food and dietary preferences. In Healthcare (Vol. 12, No. 3, p. 100749).

Albin, J. L., Thomas, O. W., Marvasti, F. F., & Reilly, J. M. (2024). Perspective: There and Back Again: A 40-Year Perspective on Physician Nutrition Education. Advances in Nutrition, 100230.

Eisenberg, D. M., Cole, A., Maile, E. J., Salt, M., Armstrong, E., Leib, E. B., ... .Thomas, O.W & Edgar, L. (2024). Proposed nutrition competencies for medical students and physician trainees: a consensus statement. JAMA network open, 7(9), e2435425-e2435425.

Thomas, O., Mirsky, J., Gonzalez, N., Wadkins, B., & Albin, J. (2024). A Recipe For Successful Food Is Medicine Programs: Food Plus People. Health Affairs Forefront.

Thomas, O., Badaracco, C., & Alexander, L. C. (2024). Food: A Vital Ingredient In Transforming Obesity Care. Health Affairs Forefront.

Badaracco, C., Farshad, M., Albin, J., Thomas, O. (2024). Prescription for Change: Health Care Professionals and Advocacy for Farm Bill Reform. Annals of Internal Medicine, 177.12 (2024): 1725-1727.

Thomas, O. W., Reilly, J. M., Wood, N. I., & Albin, J. (2024). Culinary Medicine: Needs and Strategies for Incorporating Nutrition into Medical Education in the United States. Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development, 11, 23821205241249379.

Fredericks, L., Thomas, O., Imamura, A., MacLaren, J., McClure, A., Khalil, J., & Massa, J. (2024). Will a Programmatic Framework Integrating Food Is Medicine Achieve Value on Investment? Journal of General Internal Medicine, 1-7.

Thomas, O. W., Reilly, J. M., Wood, N. I., & Albin, J. (2024). Culinary Medicine: Needs and Strategies for Incorporating Nutrition into Medical Education in the United States. Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development, 11, 23821205241249379.

Croxford, S., Stirling, E., MacLaren, J., McWhorter, J. W., Frederick, L., & Thomas, O. W. (2024). Culinary medicine or culinary nutrition? Defining terms for use in education and practice. Nutrients, 16(5), 603.

Croxford, S., MacLaren, J., Stirling, E., & Thomas, O. W. (2024). Interprofessional Culinary Medicine Education As Dietitian-led Translational Food-first Nutrition Training. Canadian Journal of Dietetic Practice and Research, 85(3), 366-366.

2019 - 2023

Thomas, O., Badaracco, C., & Akabas, S. (2023). Why Current 'Food Is Medicine' Solutions Are Falling Short. Health affairs forefront.

Thomas, O.W, McManus, C., Badaracco, C., MacLaren, J., Mason, A., McWhorter, J. W. (2023) Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Taking the Lead in Teaching Kitchen. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Donovan, K., Thomas, O. W., Sweeney, T., Ryan, T. J., Kytomaa, S., Zhao, M., ... & Lenders, C. (2023). Eat to Treat: The Methods and Assessments of a Culinary Medicine Seminar for Future Physicians and Practicing Clinicians. Nutrients, 15.

Ciszak, L., Drexler, A., Kay, I., Jortberg, B., Callen, E., Lanigan, A., ... & Weinstein, O. (2022). Medically tailored meal kits as a means of decreasing healthcare utilization in primary care patients with heart failure.

Weinstein, O., Donovan, K., McCarthy, A. C., Hiralall, L., Allen, L., Koh, W., & Apovian, C. M. (2021). Nourishing underserved populations despite scarcer resources: adaptations of an urban safety net hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. American Journal of Public Health, 111(4), 663-666.

Musicus, A. A., Vercammen, K. A., Fulay, A. P., Moran, A. J., Burg, T., Allen, L., ... & Rimm, E. B. (2019). Implementation of a rooftop farm integrated with a teaching kitchen and preventive food pantry in a hospital setting. American Journal of Public Health, 109(8), 1119-1121.

Nourishing Our Community

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Focus Areas

Foundational Research

Nutritional Science and Clinical Research

Implementation Science and Healthcare Integration

Behavior Change and Education

Training and Workforce Development

Health Equity and Community Partnership

Food Systems, Sustainability, and Procurement