With news circulating over President Donald Trump considering former Gov. Sonny Perdue (R-Ga.) to fill the secretary of agriculture position, Kaiser Health News' reporter Carmen Heredia Rodriguez delves into four key healthcare areas that the U.S. Department of Agriculture impacts.
1. Health education. The U.S. Department of Agriculture collaborated with HSS to create the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which provides key ways to help Americans develop healthy eating patterns and online tools that promote healthy eating. The USDA's Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program has worked to promote healthy diets and exercise habits for low-income families for more than four decades.
2. Rural communities. The department launched the Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grants, providing millions of dollars to communities to bolster their telecommunication capabilities and give more resources to physicians and teachers. The program has connected a medical school to rural clinic in Georgia and also set up a tele-pharmacy dispensing system in Alaska.
3. Nutrition assistance. USDA's Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program gives an Electronic Benefit Transfer for eligible Americans to use at any qualifying grocer. SNAP serves more than 44 million Americans annually, making the program the largest U.S. safety net for the hungry. In addition to SNAP, the USDA has programs such as Women, Infants and Children, which offers benefits to pregnant and nursing women and children up to five years old.
4. Preventing foodborne illness. The USDA works to combat foodborne illness on a national scale as well as in Americans' home through the Food Safety and Inspection Service. The office is charged with monitoring meat, poultry and egg product imports via safety certifications. The office audits food inspection systems and monitors food processing and distribution through microbiological testing. The office has a system that tracks and sends alerts about potentially dangerous food.