Cultivating trust and healthy food

In July I went to the bimonthly New Haven Food as Medicine Convening, my first since I’d started working as a Health Equity Fellow at Fair Haven Community Health Care. My job was to help shift Fair Haven’s Food as Medicine pilot program into an ongoing effort. At the event I shuffled through colorful flyers for farmers markets, community events, and produce prescription toolkits. Then I joined a breakout discussion that would upend my thinking.

Urban food security has long been a public health interest of mine. I was drawn to the fellowship because the clinic’s patients had played a central role in creating programs that improve health outcomes by addressing food insecurity. Their perspectives informed the pilot produce prescription program, which issued scripts to patients letting them buy fresh produce throughout New Haven. I was spending my summer developing resources for nutrition education, counseling, and support. At the July convening — organized by the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement (CARE) — I saw how my work complemented what was being done in other organizations in New Haven addressing food insecurity, such as community gardens.

And then there was that breakout session, talking about how to lower the risk of chronic disease by getting fresh produce to food insecure patients and community members. As a framework was discussed, one person spoke up and said that, as usual, it was missing local growers, smaller-scale producers typically left out of conversations like this and overlooked in food justice work. I hadn’t known that many growers felt excluded from these spaces. I looked up from my notepad and caught my colleague’s eye across the circle—we both knew this was an important issue that needed to be addressed for Fair Haven’s Food as Medicine program.

I knew we had to honestly assess what we were doing in the community and whether we were really building trust. It’s one thing to say working in silos limits impact, and it’s another to really work well across groups as varied as gardeners, food pantries, commercial kitchens, and health facilities.

Where I had been focused on tailoring the clinic’s materials just for its patients, I now crafted them with the broader community in mind, asking myself who else might use our food-as-medicine resources, like nutrition education. I made materials more accessible by using simpler language, including practical recommendations, and adapting content into multiple formats. I researched structural barriers like zoning issues, which can prevent non-healthcare providers from participating in these programs or can exacerbate health complications related to food insecurity. And I learned about challenges specific to food-as-medicine programs, including limited funding opportunities and staff capacity, and the need for culturally appropriate implementation.

I had frequent conversations with my preceptor, Food Program Director Marcie Brainerd, exploring how the clinic could distribute resources more equitably. Together, we recognized that to truly address disparities, we needed to prioritize a community-centered effort. We built relationships with community gardeners, who made plans to donate surplus produce that would later be used to help stock the clinic’s “Food Farmacy,” where eligible patients could receive fresh fruits and vegetables. We also invited community members into the clinic for nutrition workshops led by the clinic’s staff with educational support from social service agency volunteers, who also invited their clients from outside Fair Haven to participate.

Over the course of the summer, I often found myself thinking back to the discussions at the Convening and the impact of community dialogue: the satisfaction of hearing about diverse approaches to food procurement, the energy boost from brainstorming ideas to get people to food sites, and even the discomfort of unpacking tough subjects like power imbalances.

My fellowship has transformed how I envision my future in public health and health policy. I now understand that common goals are not enough to create community partnerships. We need to actively cultivate relationships and to empower communities to take part in creating solutions to their problems. These experiences have shown me that community partnerships thrive when there is continuous effort and attention toward ensuring mutual benefit for everyone involved. I hope to continue amplifying community voices as an advocate and to remain rooted in equitable collaboration. Going forward, I see genuine community partnership as a foundation for sustainable change.

Kacia Flynn, MPH ‘26, is a student at Yale School of Public Health studying health policy.

The Yale School of Public Health’s Office of Community & Practice supported eight students as Health Equity Fellows this summer, including Kacia Flynn, with fully funded fellowships at six local agencies. Co-designed with the Yale School of Public Health's community partners, the fellowships addressed such topics as anti-racism and health equity. The community agencies are remunerated for their time by YSPH and the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement (CARE).