2025 Food Policy Updates, UPFs, SNAP, MAHA, Oh My!!: IHPS Health Policy Grand Rounds

 Laura Schmidt, PhD, MSW, MPH and Hilary Seligman, MD, MAS

Food policy in America is currently in the limelight, with two federal reports from Make American Healthy Again, plus major cuts to federal food programs.   This presentation by two IHPS food policy researchers covers the changing landscape in America; from local policies to tax soda, California state policies to regulate ultra-processed foods, and federal policies that are dramatically reshaping programs for food security and the way nutrition is communicated to Americans.

Laura A. Schmidt, PhD, is a sociologist who investigates the root causes of chronic disease in commercial products, including ultra-processed foods, alcohol, tobacco and cannabis. Her research has uncovered close ties between the tobacco and ultra-processed food industries, helping us to rethink food from an addiction standpoint. Dr. Schmidt’s lab, which is funded by the US National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and Department of Agriculture, is innovating new ways to prevent chronic disease by changing food environments.

Hilary Seligman, MD, MAS, is Professor of Medicine and of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). She holds faculty affiliations in UCSF’s Division of General Internal Medicine, Institute for Health Policy Studies, ARC for Health, and Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. Hilary is a nationally recognized expert on food insecurity and health outcomes across the life course, with a particular interest in programs and policies that can simultaneously support food security and better health.  She has directed NOPREN (the CDC’s Nutrition and Obesity Policy Research and Evaluation Network) for the last ten years. Her team runs Vouchers for Veggies, a large produce prescription program known in San Francisco as EatSF.