Instacart Helping to Make Veterans Healthier
Instacart has rolled out a new pilot program and research initiative with The Rockefeller Foundation, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and The University of Syracuse to better understand the effect of medically tailored groceries on military veterans. The need for such a program is clear, as one in six military and veteran families (16%) experience food insecurity or hunger, higher than the national average (12%), and U.S. veterans develop chronic health conditions at disproportionately higher rates than the general population.
The pilot will support 250 rural, homebound, low-income veterans with diabetes or hypertension and limited food access in the Syracuse, N.Y., area. Instacart Health Fresh Funds, the company’s online category-specific grocery stipends, will provide $100 monthly to eligible veterans for 12 months. Syracuse University will conduct research to evaluate the program’s impact on health, health care use, costs and other metrics.
The goal is to generate data that can help shape future food-as-medicine programs throughout the VA health care system, ensuring that more vets gain access to nutritious food to support their health and well-being.
[RELATED: The ROI of Food as Medicine]
The pilot is one of several major veterans-focused research initiatives Rockefeller revealed this week at a Capitol Hill event with U.S. Representatives Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., and Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, all of them designed to gauge the effectiveness of food-as-medicine programs with veterans, reaching a total of 2,000 vets in five states.
This initiative also expands on Instacart’s wider efforts to boost food access for service members and their families. Last year, for example, Instacart teamed up with the Military Family Advisory Network to start a food assistance program for military families relocating to U.S. Army Fort Cavazos, in Texas.
“We’re honored to play a role in this important work — because when veterans and military families have access to the food they need to thrive, we all benefit,” noted Casey Aden-Wansbury, VP of Policy and government affairs at San Francisco-based Instacart, in a blog post on the company’s website.
