St. Mary launches new food insecurity initiative

The Langhorne-based hospital has partnered with Bucks County Human Services and more to stamp out chronic hunger in the Bucks County region

The Times

St. Mary Medical Center launched a new food insecurity initiative, which aims to stamp out chronic hunger in the Bucks County region. St. Mary partnered with the Bucks County Human Services, Bucks County Opportunity Council, Penn Community Bank, St. Mary Foundation and the United Way of Bucks County to identify gaps in food assistance resources and create an interactive map (https://www.stmaryhealthcare.org/foodaid-map) for the community to learn where food services are located.

According to the 2018 Bucks County Food Assistance Assessment (https://www.stmaryhealthcare.org/foodaid), completed by the Public Health Management Corporation at the request of St. Mary and its partners, in the southern end of Bucks County, nearly nine percent of the population either cuts meal size or skips meals because they lack the money for food. This lack of access to healthy food puts the community at risk for poor health outcomes.

“St. Mary Medical Center is committed to achieving better health outcomes by providing access to healthy food options and providing an interactive map of Bucks County food assistance programs and locations,” said St. Mary’s Joann Dorr, manager community health & well-being. “Working in collaboration with our community partners enables us to shine a brighter light on the food insecurity issue in Bucks County, and we’re excited to take this important next step to ending hunger in our area.”

One of the issues identified in the assessment was that the most “at-risk” communities for food insecurity are not aware of local services. St. Mary and its partners worked together to develop an interactive map to help residents search for, and find, food assistance sites and programs such as “WIC,” food pantries, senior center meals and “SNAP” farmers markets.

“The new food assistance assessment reaffirms what we’ve known for a long time, which is that hunger is a big problem in Bucks County,” said Dorr. “However, through our work with the Hunger & Nutrition Coalition we’ve helped to create through the Fresh Connect partnership, we’ve also seen how access to healthier food options can improve the health and quality of life for our community.”

Food insecurity, as defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is the measure of lack of access, at times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members, and limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods. Food-insecure households are not necessarily food insecure all the time. Food insecurity may reflect a household’s need to make trade-offs between important basic needs, such as housing or medical bills, and purchasing nutritionally adequate foods.

To learn more about the 2018 Bucks County Food Assistance Assessment, or to see which food program is available in your area, go to http://www.stmaryhealthcare.org/FoodAid