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Initiative on Healthy Foods, Healthy Lives

The University of Minnesota is uniquely positioned as a national leader for an initiative focusing on food and health promotion, being one of only two U.S. universities to integrate six key components on one campus: agriculture, human nutrition, medicine, public health, exercise science, and veterinary medicine.

This initiative seeks to build the University’s capacity in research, learning and outreach to grow and sustain impact in the interdisciplinary arena of food, nutrition and health-- bridging quality science to sound public policy, and transforming what we know into what we do.

The four aspirations of this initiative are:

• To utilize and advance knowledge about the integration of agriculture, food science, nutrition and medicine to promote healthy lives;
• To emphasize prevention of diet-related chronic diseases and obesity through diet, exercise and human behavior;
• To enhance food safety at all stages, from farm to table; and
• To inform public policy.

This is accomplished primarily by:

• ”Seeding” interdisciplinary research teams whose goal is the development and implementation of next generation extramurally funded research and training programs;
  
  
• Developing cross-college programs to expand teaching in these areas, provide innovative training and mentoring opportunities for junior faculty, graduate students and high-performing undergraduate students; and
  
  
• Building interdisciplinary support efforts across teams and colleges to encourage joint learning, discussion, problem solving, dissemination of impact and public learning.

Initiative Co-leaders:
Allen S. Levine, Dean, College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences
John Finnegan, Dean, School of Public Health

Initiative Contact:
Lori Engstrom, Chief of Staff, College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences
612-626-5985 or lmengstr@umn.edu