Food Link: A Partnership Providing Healthy Foods to Food Insecure Patients.

BACKGROUND: Defined as an economic and social condition characterized by uncertain access to adequate food, food insecurity (FI) is associated with negative health outcomes and higher health care costs. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this article is to discuss the implementation and results of Food Link, a population-based FI program serving vulnerable populations in Birmingham, Alabama. METHODS: Academic, clinical, and community partners implemented Food Link in two free clinics serving patients with diabetes and heart failure. Patients identified as FI using the Hunger Vital Signs Screener receive dry goods and produce, food pantry referrals and benefits education. RESULTS: During the first 18 months of Food Link, more than one-half of the patients (n = 466) screened as FI and received food, with a total of 1,179 food distributions. CONCLUSIONS: Academic, clinical, and community partners working together can help meet the FI needs of vulnerable populations with the goal of improving health and decreasing costs.

Development of an academic practice partnership to improve maternal child health.

This manuscript describes one nursing school's innovative community-based partnership with community organizations and Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), an established nurse home visiting program for first-time, low income mothers and infants. The aim of this academic nursing endeavor with the community and NFP is to improve the health and well-being of low-income, first time mothers and their children while also providing comprehensive, population-based nursing experiences for students and service leadership and scholarship opportunities for faculty. The academic-practice community partnership described here makes a case for utilizing the expertise and capacity of a nursing school to implement and administer an NFP program and serves as an exemplar for the recommendations described in the New Era for Academic Nursing report (AACN, 2016). The value of forming partnerships between a public health department, the philanthropic community and an academic nursing institution is highlighted. In this case, the three organizations partnering together around a common purpose of improving birth outcomes enabled the partnership to accomplish more than any individual organization could have accomplished alone.