By Xenia Shih Bion, California Health Care Foundation, January 13, 2020
Once a month, patients line up early at La Clínica de la Raza’s San Antonio Neighborhood Health Center in East Oakland. They arrive with grocery bags and $10 vouchers written by their physicians for the most basic — and yet surprising — type of medicine: healthful food.
Since 2018, La Clínica has been running “food pharmacies” to help patients obtain fresh, locally sourced produce. The food pharmacy program is part of ALL IN Alameda County, the county’s multipronged initiative to end poverty, launched in 2014 by County Supervisor Wilma Chan. “Unfolding in the backyard of the local food movement, these pharmacies are part of a new push to bring produce into primary care,” Erica Hellerstein wrote in CalMatters. “The goal is to stave off poor health outcomes and reduce nutrition-related diseases like diabetes and hypertension.”
According to the Urban Institute and the Alameda County Community Food Bank, approximately 20% of households in Alameda County are food insecure. Nationally, 39% of families frequently or occasionally experience stress over meeting their food needs, according to a social needs survey conducted by Kaiser Permanente.
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