Grant County- Health Impact Assessment: Southwest New Mexico Food Policy Council

Determining health impacts of emergency food supplies on The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) recipients in rural and frontier communities. This HIA project will gather local data on both the quantity and quality of food supplies distributed via the local food distributors/food pantries and the impact on low income families in Grant, Hidalgo, Luna and Catron counties.  The project will allow for the assessment of food quality and quantity and its correlation to health indicators of low-income families in the region, most of whom are children, the elderly and Hispanic. It will also examine the how TEFAP supplies in rural and frontier areas differ from supplies in more urban areas. There is currently no known practice or method for assessing the quality of food supplies distributed to low-income families in New Mexico. The system’s only measure of success is based on the total pounds of food distributed per household. This project will pilot a tool for measuring food quality at the local food pantry level. The National Center for Frontier Communities will serve as facilitators or the “backbone organization” for this.