The West Virginia Food is Medicine Coalition brings together representatives from all sectors of the food and nutrition space to refine and uplift the vision of healthy food access in West Virginia. The collaborative effort involves several West Virginia University entities, including WVU Extension, the WVU Institute for Community and Rural Health and the Nourish WV Initiative.
Food is medicine programs aim to prevent, manage and treat diet-related chronic conditions by integrating nutrition into health care. These programs ensure that healthy foods become an essential part of the medical treatment plan. Whether it is medically tailored meals or produce prescriptions, food is medicine programs can help address the root cause of certain chronic illnesses and promote long-term wellness.
“Some of our most vulnerable rural communities need better access to nutritious food to help them manage chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension, and that is going to, in turn, reduce the toll of chronic illness for individuals, for communities, and our health care system, and ultimately it's going to save costs for our state,” said Gina Wood, Extension specialist and co-director of the WVU Extension Family Nutrition Program. “We know that our state is prioritizing reducing the economic impact of chronic disease, and nutrition has a very strong role to play in achieving that vision, so that’s really where our focus is going to be.”
The West Virginia Food is Medicine Coalition was formed in 2025, hosting its first virtual meeting in June and its first in-person meeting in September at Stonewall Resort. Although it is just beginning, this organization already has strong roots across the state.
There are 96 food as medicine program sites statewide, serving more than 40 counties. This coalition brings together representatives from the organizations that facilitate those programs, aiming to make nutrition a cornerstone of health care.
“As I talked with others working in this space, there were a lot of common barriers across many programs. We felt that advancing food as medicine work across the state through a systems approach was the only way to lead to improved access to Food is Medicine programs and services,” Wood said. “The goal of this coalition is to create space for collaboration and coordination, which would lead us to sustainable solutions without slowing down or interfering with existing programs.”
Attendance at the first in-person meeting represented an inclusive, multisector group of people involved in Food is Medicine programming around the state. There were representatives from health care backgrounds, nutrition education, program participants, insurance companies, food access and food security organizations, farmers and farm partners, to name a few.
“In West Virginia, we recognize that you can’t treat chronic disease without addressing food and nutrition insecurity,” said Megan Govindan, research scientist at the WVU Institute for Community and Rural Health and director of the Nourish WV Initiative. “Our partnership with the Food is Medicine Coalition is really about transforming our health care system using the power of local food to heal our residents and boost our farming community simultaneously.”
Govindan recognizes the importance of working to integrate local agriculture into health care. The coalition is made up of a group of people who are committed to de-siloing their work to find common language between all of these organizations. A key part of the Nourish WV Initiative is carving out more intentional spaces to bring more people to the table.
“When you think about why this is so critical for West Virginians, we lead the nation in small family-owned farms, and West Virginians traditionally don’t grow for large markets; we grow for our communities, and that is one of the things that really motivates our agriculture community to engage in production,” Govindan said. “We want to leverage the transformative power of agriculture in our communities, keeping our farmers at the forefront and thinking about them as our frontline healthcare workers—because all of these things really start on the farm.”
This group will work to build connections across sectors, improving the quality of programming offered in the state. One of the main goals of the coalition is to build upon existing efforts to improve access to nutritious foods for people who need them and may have trouble getting them.
Through this work to improve collaboration between organizations with this same goal, it is important to the coalition to lift up the voices of West Virginians.
“We want to make sure the voices of those with lived experience are heard and that our community-based organizations who do such a wonderful job of meeting local food needs are heavily involved so that we are building programs that actually meet the needs of people and communities,” Wood said.
While the foundation is there and a large group of like-minded organizations is coming together already, there is still work to be done. The coalition is working to build connections and define a mission that represents and serves West Virginia.
“We want to do this in a way that is uniquely West Virginian and not just follow a model that has been built by another state,” Wood said. “What’s going to lead us to success is if we're open to learning and listening to what our communities need, and we access the strengths that exist in our communities already. West Virginia communities have so much to offer, and we want to make sure we’re respectful of that.”
Currently, the Family Nutrition Program is located in 21 counties with 15 part-time Nutrition Outreach Instructors who provide nutrition education in their communities. Please speak to the FNP Nutrition Outreach Instructor in your area if you're interested.
If you want to learn more about WVU Extension, visit extension.wvu.edu or follow @WVUExtension on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
-WVU-
Sk/01/14/26
CONTACT: Sydney Keener
Communications Specialist
WVU Division for Land-Grant Engagement
304-293-8986; Sydney.keener@mail.wvu.edu