America’s public health programs must cover medically tailored meals

American healthcare spends extraordinary sums caring for people after they get sick — more than $5 trillion each year and counting — and comparatively little keeping them well. Our recent study published in Nature Medicine offers fresh evidence in support of one of the most effective tools for closing that gap: meals tailored to the nutritional needs of the people who receive them. 

The Tufts University Food is Medicine Institute — where one of us is director — and the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, in partnership with several of the largest healthcare systems in Massachusetts, found that six months of medically tailored meals were associated with 31 percent fewer hospitalizations and 20 percent fewer emergency room visits among Medicaid members. The medically tailored meals were designed by registered dietitians with Community Servings — a Boston-based nonprofit one of us leads — for people managing serious, diet-sensitive illnesses. 

The intervention generated an average of $3,433 in per-person healthcare savings, essentially offsetting its own costs. Among patients with kidney disease, the program saved even more money, generating gross savings of $12,312. Large savings were also seen among those with cardiovascular disease ($10,450), depression and anxiety ($5,597) and diabetes ($4,123). 

While we are hardly neutral observers, the findings are powerful, peer-reviewed and consistent with a growing body of........

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