07-20-2026IMPACT COUNCIL

What if hunger were treated like a vital sign?

We need to close the gap between screening and taking action.

[Photo: Getty Images]

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of top leaders and experts who pay dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership, and more.

Food insecurity adds an estimated $53 billion to the nation’s medical bill every year, per a 2019 study. Yet most providers still log it as a note in the patient chart rather than a vital sign worth treating. It’s a problem with few headlines or funding dollars, but it has an outsized impact on people’s health.

More Americans are food insecure now than in 2020: roughly 1 in 7 households, or almost 48 million people. They enter surgery and hospitalization with a sicker baseline, higher rates of chronic disease, impaired immune response, and slower tissue repair, which drives wound complications, infections, longer recoveries, and premature mortality. That shows up as more emergency department visits, inpatient admissions, and longer hospital stays.

In trauma patients, food insecurity yields a threefold higher post-operative complication rate and a median hospital stay more than double that of other patients. For seniors, it can limit daily activities equivalent to aging an........

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