Food and Nutrition Security

Cluster Goals

Nutrition plays an important role in mental and physical health, making food and nutrition security an increasingly important goal for reducing health disparities. Yet hundreds of millions of people around the world experience hunger, and more than two billion people globally are malnourished. This represents a complex challenge both in Tennessee and around the world. 

To improve food and nutrition security, the Food and Nutritional Security cluster at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, aims to address the intertwined components of food availability, accessibility, and utilization by focusing on people’s food acquisition behaviors and other food-related choices. To support improvements in health, we will use an implementation science framework as we translate our research into practice on campus, with health care and food bank partners, and across Tennessee communities.

Together we will use a human-centered approach to enrich the quality of people’s diets, address individuals’ food-associated health disparities, and contribute to sustainable food systems that lead to equitable outcomes.

Partners for Health

We’re bringing together researchers with diverse areas of expertise, including:

• Food supply chains
• Food quality and safety
• Food processing and engineering
• Consumer behaviors and perceptions related to food
• Nutrition, dietary quality, and health outcomes
• Sustainability and food waste reduction
• Translating food and health research to communities

Why UT?

UT is committed to advancing human health and wellness. Within that focal area, food and nutrition security is a strategic priority. The cluster will lead UT to national prominence in the field by leveraging a sustainable food systems perspective made possible through collaboration and UT’s land-grant university resources.

By forging strong connections between social and behavioral sciences, food sciences, and resource economics, we’ll establish a path for innovative new research and academic programming to benefit our communities. UT Extension provides a critical structure for sharing insights with communities, partnering with local food system stakeholders, and providing technical and educational programming. We also leverage connections with the UT One Health Initiative.

The cluster’s work builds on and contributes to several key UT programs and initiatives to translate research into practice and maximize its combined impacts. For example, cluster faculty members support UT’s innovative long-term partnership with Cherokee Health Systems—a federally qualified health center serving more than 70,000 Tennesseans—through scholarship, student education, provider training, and client visits.

We also support research, scholarship, and training that uses the food4VOLS program launched in the Department of Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism Management’s Culinary Institute to study food upcycling models and increase food security education on college campuses. The program, currently the only of its kind in the US, is serving as a model for programs at other universities.