When it comes to ensuring communities support health, residents know what they need—and what they don’t. That’s why local and state leaders in New Jersey are working with residents to improve their access to healthy foods.
New Jersey is the only state in the country with an official Office of the Food Security Advocate (OFSA) in the state office. Leaders there are working to understand the aspirations communities have and the challenges they face in accessing healthy food.
Executive Director Mark Dinglasan regularly visits with and listens to service providers in communities and local public agencies to learn more about residents’ goals and needs. What he learns is then used to shape the state’s efforts to improve access to healthy food.
The New Jersey Food Security Initiative (NJFSI), funded by RWJF, is another example of how the state is proactively seeking input from residents to make nutritious foods more available in every community. When the project launched in 2021, its initial effort was to conduct an assessment to better understand the challenges of hunger in New Jersey and the solutions communities were already implementing to address it.
A critical part of that assessment involved engaging residents who had experienced hunger and poverty in sharing their insights. During the process, the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), which manages NJFSI, conducted more than 150 interviews with local residents as well as New Jersey based experts in food retail, healthcare, emergency food assistance, transportation, academia, early care and education, anti-hunger advocacy, economic development, social services, waste management, state agencies, government, and more.
