Find resources to prevent, manage, and treat diet-related disease states and promote health and wellbeing through food and nutrition.

 Read about our perspective on the current Food Is Medicine landscape.  

Food is Medicine Video 

Read More

 About CalFresh

CalFresh is a federal nutrition program that lets people buy food at their local grocery store with a debit card. Nationally, it is known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), but many may know it by its old name: food stamps.

CalFresh Outreach Work

California has one of the lowest rates of SNAP participation in the country, with only 70% of eligible households getting CalFresh. Almost 2 million Californians are not receiving these nutrition benefits that they are qualified to receive. 

There are many reasons that people don’t apply for CalFresh. The role of CalFresh outreach is to help address these barriers, assist community members with their applications, and ensure eligible households can keep getting CalFresh. 

While California’s participation rate continues to lag far behind the national average, together with our partners we are helping low-income families secure the support they need for healthy diets.

Each year, our outreach partners assist nearly 30,000 households apply for CalFresh each year.

FIND A CalFresh PARTNER

 CalFresh Benefits Helpline
1-877-847-3663

Programs

• CalFresh Food
• CalFresh Healthy Living (SNAP-Ed)
• CalFresh Employment and Training (E&T)
• CalFresh Disaster Response
• CalFresh Restaurant Meals Program (RMP)
• Food Distribution Unit (FDU)

California Association of Food Banks Member List   (41 listings )(5 pages)

FIND A LOCAL FOODBANK 

As a result of the impact of COVID19 on the economy many more people are relying on foodbanks to make ends meet. As a result the lines are long. This is potentially an opportunity to reach individuals with other health messages by employing CHWs with the community trust and language skills to meet people where they are at while they wait for their food packages. 

• COVID Safety Protocols ( Masks , Social Distancing, Handwashing)
• Vaccine  information and support for vaccine hesitancy
• Chronic disease self management( eg Diabetes, BP, Asthma)

https://innovation.cms.gov/files/worksheets/ahcm-screeningtool.pdf

The Accountable Health Communities Health-Related Social Needs Screening Tool

(pdf 10 pages)

The Tool can help providers find out patients’ needs in these 5 core  domains that community services can help with:

1. • Housing instability
2. • Food insecurity
3. • Transportation problems
4. • Utility help needs
5.  • Interpersonal safety 

+8 supplemental domains

1. • Financial strain
2. • Employment
3. • Family and community support
4. • Education
5. • Physical activity
6. • Substance use
7. • Mental health
8. • Disabilities

https://prapare.org/

Nationally standardized and stakeholder-driven, the 

Protocol for Responding to & Assessing Patients’ Assets, Risks & Experiences (PRAPARE) 

is designed to equip healthcare and their community partners to better understand and act on individuals’ social determinants of health (SDOH). PRAPARE, when paired with the Implementation and Action Toolkit, empowers users to leverage data to improve health equity at the individual, community, and systems levels.

 The PRAPARE Implementation and Action Toolkit is designed to provide interested users with the resources, best practices, and lessons learned to guide implementation, data collection, and responses to social determinant needs. This Toolkit is based on the experiences, best practices, and lessons learned of our early adopting and pioneering community health centers. We thank them for sharing their innovations and lessons learned with us so that others can advance their own social determinants of health journey. 

TOOLKIT