Title: Message from the Chair
Author:
Section/SPIG: Food and Nutrition
Issue Date:
APHA has over 60 policy statements on issues of primary interest to the Food and Nutrition Section. Topics range from nutrition monitoring to food assistance, breastfeeding, and safety of the food supply. In an organization as large and diverse as APHA, it is essential to have a formal process for adopting and updating policies that have benefited from input from all parts of the organization and can guide the advocacy efforts of the Executive Director and paid staff. This year, APHA has undertaken a major effort to review policies adopted since 1948, to 1) archive those that should no longer be active, and 2) flag those in need of updates.
In April and May 2004, the Food and Nutrition Section Council coordinated review of 46 policy statements, and provided our recommendations to APHA by the May 21, 2004 deadline. The 61 FN-related policies were categorized into ten topic areas as follows:
1. Breastfeeding and infant feeding
2. Child Nutrition Programs (e.g., school lunch)
3. Dietary Guidelines
4. Food Stamp Program and other hunger issues
5. Food labeling
6. Food safety
7. Nutrition education & miscellaneous, including international items
8. Nutrition monitoring
9. Overweight and obesity
10. WIC Program
The food safety policy statements were tabled for consideration next year so that we could focus on the remaining 46 items and have time to identify section members with the expertise needed to review food safety policy issues (see “Food Safety Ad Hoc Committee,” below). Of the 46 reviewed, 27 were flagged for archiving, including 18 of the 20 policy statements adopted before 1977. Only four, all adopted since 2000, were classified as “OK as is.” The remaining 15 were flagged as OK, but in need of updating. The discussion of the ratings revealed a general impression that the section would be well served by preparing a few broad policy papers that would consolidate and update many of these positions. These should include reference to the historical archived documents to show that APHA has been active in the area for many years, but should be written in a style that would not quickly become out of date. So while we have made significant progress on the review of APHA food and nutrition policies, there remains much to be done by our section. Follow-up action will be a main subject of discussion at the next FN Section Council conference call (July 2004). If you are interested in working with the Council to draft one of the broad policy statements, please e-mail me at <jdhirschman@aol.com> indicating which of the above listed areas you would like to address.
Food Safety Ad Hoc Committee: At the FN Section Council mid-year meeting (Feb. 20-21, 2004), the group was generally supportive of the concept of creating a food safety committee within our section. In follow-up, I am officially chartering the Food Safety Ad Hoc Committee, and have appointed Dr. Eileen Parrish as chair of this committee. Dr. Parrish works at FDA, where she specializes in food safety issues. If you would like to co-chair or otherwise participate in this committee, please send an e-mail to me at <jdhirschman@aol.com> expressing interest. The first charge to the Food Safety Ad Hoc Committee will be to review the APHA food safety policies as we have done for the other FN policies. This will lead to drafting of one or more new policy statements to guide the organization as we face new food safety challenges in the 21st century. The new statement(s) will be submitted to APHA formal review/adoption process early in 2005.
My thanks to the entire Section Council, <http://www.aphafoodandnutrition.org/officers.htm>, and Lissa Ong for the group effort reviewing the existing policies. All APHA policy statements can be found on the Web at <www.apha.org/legislative/policy/>, and this site can be searched by keyword. If you wish to learn more about the APHA process and timetable for policy review, please visit the policy process portion of the APHA Web site: <www.apha.org/private/ppolicy.htm#calendar>.
Jay Hirschman, MPH, CNS
Chair, APHA Food and Nutrition Section