Author: vermontnews

The impact of the coronavirus on the healthcare system and on financial markets is all too clear. But what about the stress it’s putting on the food system and on those who are food insecure?

University of Vermont researchers fielded a survey this week, developed in collaboration with faculty at Johns Hopkins University, to determine those impacts in Vermont.

To take the survey, visit www.coronavirusfoodsurvey.com or see Front Porch Forum and Facebook. Participants must be over the age of 18. Questions about the survey can be directed to the principal investigator, Meredith Niles at mtniles@uvm.edu.

Researchers plan to collect and analyze the results quickly enough that they could inform policies during the ongoing pandemic. They also hope to use the results of the Vermont survey to inform a national survey.

“The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted a number of instabilities in the food system,” said Niles, an assistant professor in UVM’s Nutrition and Food Sciences Department.

“People are changing their purchasing habits and stockpiling food, which could reduce access for others. We also know that fundamental programs that alleviate food insecurity, from Meals on Wheels to free school meals to assistance programs like 3Squares VT, have new demands and have had to make changes because of the coronavirus. And new groups of people, either because they are ill or have lost their jobs, may be experiencing food insecurity.”

The survey asks respondents where they obtained food over the last year for themselves and their families and if availability from that source has changed since the coronavirus outbreak. It also asks how worried respondents are that the coronavirus will affect their access to healthy food and seeks to understand their perspectives overall on the outbreak.

“The goal is to understand how people are responding to the crisis, learn what the impacts are and identify steps we can take to address these problems,” said Farryl Bertmann, another faculty member in Nutrition and Food Sciences who is collaborating on the project. “It’s critical to obtain this information, both to blunt the effects of the current pandemic and to prepare for future disease outbreaks and other shocks to society and the food system,” she said.

The researchers hope for a high response rate to the survey.

“We need as many people as possible to take the survey, so we have detailed data that will help us create the most informed public policy recommendations,” said another member of the research team, Emily Morgan, also a faculty member in Nutrition and Food Sciences.

Food insecurity is defined as access by all household members, at all times, to enough food for an active, healthy life. According to Map the Meal Gap 2019, 11.9% of Vermont households are food insecure, 15.9% of Vermont children live in food-insecure households, and as of 2017, 5.4% of Vermont seniors experience food insecurity.   

Source: UVM News

As president and CEO of Delaware Health Sciences Alliance, an organization that includes the major health systems and research universities in the Delaware Valley, Dr. Omar Khan, MD ’03, is at the frontlines of the COVID-19 response. He’s been working with his team to ramp up testing and treatment, source personal protective equipment for healthcare workers, and keep the community informed, all while continuing to see patients himself as a family medicine physician. 

With the situation changing every day, sometimes minute-by-minute, he’s buoyed by the cooperation and sense of purpose he sees in the midst of an intense and unpredictable situation. 

“I feel fortunate to be able to serve communities in need,” he says. “I’m also grateful to work with exceptional people, many of whom work tirelessly behind the scenes and often don’t get the credit they deserve.” 

This isn’t the first time Khan has been in the thick of a battle against a global infectious disease. In 2006, he traveled through rural Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh as part of a World Health Organization polio eradication team. They traversed the countryside with one goal: vaccinate every child they could find. Equipped with maps down to the household level, they were hard at work when an 8.6 magnitude earthquake struck, devastating the region and forcing the team to adapt to new circumstances. It’s an experience that’s informed Khan’s work ever since, as a physician, a global health expert and healthcare leader.  

“You have to be willing to change the paradigm and adapt rapidly,” he says. 

Khan, who also holds a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, has co-authored several books on global health and infectious disease, including The End of Polio with Tim Brookes, a Vermont resident and frequent contributor to VPR and other national publications. Behind the Mask, also authored by Brookes, traces the SARS outbreak of the early 2000s, a disease caused by a virus closely related to the one fueling the current COVID-19 pandemic. Most recently, Khan served as principal editor of Control of Communicable Diseases: Clinical Practice, partnered with his longtime colleague Dr. David Heymann, who oversaw polio and SARS responses while at the WHO. Published this February by APHA Press, an imprint of the American Public Health Association, it’s a companion to the Control of Communicable Diseases Manual, a go-to resource for physicians that has been in print for over 100 years.  

After growing up in Delaware and completing medical school and family medicine residency in Vermont, Khan considers both states home. Now with COVID-19 bearing down on the world, he sees hope in a place like Vermont, where “folks coming together to solve a problem” is part of the fabric of life.

“A small state and tight-knit community have a lot to offer the rest of the world,” he says. “Global health is local health.”

 

Source: UVM News