Partnership For A Healthier America Inc

PHA works upstream to transform the marketplace so that children and families can make healthier choices and lead healthier lives. We work with nearly 500 partners to transform the marketplace for healthier options wherever you are, making sure packaged foods are more nutritionally balanced, fruits and vegetables are more available and affordable, and marketing dollars are directed toward healthier choices. We partner with early childhood education providers, colleges and universities, and food banks so that everyone, everywhere is exposed to healthier options and environments when they are forming and shaping their behaviors.

Our three strategies are to 1) transform the marketplace, 2) cultivate healthier environments, and 3) showcase and accelerate scalable work.

One of our primary efforts under the first strategy is our work with food banks. Our goal is to reorient food banks around health, proving what’s possible with a growing cohort of food assistance partners, and ultimately, providing healthier food to low-income Americans most at-risk for disease and chronic conditions. As of spring 2019, we have 23 food banks and food pantries in our roster reaching 5 million people in 19 different states. Through our framework, these partners have committed to assessing the nutritional quality of food distributed and providing 66 million additional pounds of nutritious food—and even more remarkable—to removing more than 12 million pounds of junk food from the food supply over a three-year period.

One of our primary efforts under the second strategy is our Healthier Campus Initiative (HCI). Too often, college students develop or continue habits that can set them on a course for poor health, chronic disease, and higher health care costs. Creating healthier lifestyles in young adulthood can help to reverse this trend, particularly at a time of life when individuals are most open to forming new habits and behaviors. HCI has reached more than 1.7 million students, faculty, and staff on 77 healthier college and university campuses, 40% of which are community colleges and minority-serving institutions. The latter include Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions, and Tribal Colleges.

Under our third strategy, PHA’s hosts topic dinners, targeted convenings, and an annual Summit that pulls together an interdisciplinary group of stakeholders to work toward our shared goal of helping every child in America grow up at a healthy weight. We assemble hundreds of leaders from corporations, nonprofit organizations, academia, government, and the public health community to share best practices and inspire innovative solutions in our field. Our 2020 Summit will be held in Chicago. We also share results from past efforts and relevant research findings with the broader community through white papers and case studies.

PHA is the premier nationwide organization harnessing the power of the private sector toward the development of lasting, sustainable changes that improve the food supply and increase physical activity. To date, PHA has partnered with nearly 300 organizations that have made voluntary commitments to business practice change, including private-sector companies, as well as community-based organizations like food banks and food pantries, nonprofits promoting physical activity, and local SNAP-Ed implementing agencies.

Thanks to these partnerships, the American public has consumed 6 trillion fewer calories as a result of 16 major partner food companies reformulating products to reduce salt, fat, and sugar. More than 1,800 partner convenience stores across 29 states, 73% located in food deserts, are expanding healthier options in parts of the country where food access is extremely limited. More than 6 million people across the country now have access to 602 new or renovated healthy food access points through 7 partner retailers.

PHA equips our partners with the tools and resources to encourage consumers to make healthier choices and manages two award-winning social marketing campaigns, DrinkUp, launched in 2013 to encourage water consumption, and FNV, a campaign launched in 2015 that uses the power of celebrity to promote fruits and vegetables of all types in the style of big brands. In 2016, bottled water surpassed sugar sweetened beverages as the most consumed beverage in the US. FNV has been shown to positively impact attitudes and behaviors of consumers and is currently being tested in market in collaboration with a major retailer to determine its impact on sales.

PHA continues to bring together partners and encourage new collaborations, working at scale to transform the marketplace and reach children and young adults in critical environments. As noted above, we are reaching more than 1.7 million undergraduates, faculty, and staff through our Healthier Campus Initiative and our food bank cohort currently serves more than 5 million food-insecure Americans.

Going forward, we are working with key leaders on business practice change that enhances early palate development for babies and toddlers; expanding our partnerships with convenience store chains and distributors that have the opportunity to serve 1 out of 2 Americans every day, many of whom are in food deserts, with healthier choices; and working with the EAT Foundation to implement US recommendations for nutrition that are better for people and more sustainable for the planet.