PLEASE NOTE: This is not a policy recommendation but a inter-agency strategy for launching an innovative health accelerator strategy across the US. It can be implemented at any time. However, it is advantageous to launch the strategy within the first two quarters of 2025 in order meet Trump’s mandate of achieving “measurable impacts” toward ending chronic disease within two years.
SUMMARY
Reflecting president’s Trump’s 2020 Opportunity and Revitalization Council which was comprised of 17 Federal agencies and Federal State partnerships, the proposed structure of the Health Innovation Working Group demonstrates a strong federal trend in leveraging interagency collaborations to enhance, amplify and most importantly accelerate its impact while reducing stand-up costs associated with the development of new programs. [1] According to the National Security Technology Accelerator, “this approach optimizes resource use, accelerates implementation, and minimizes duplication of effort, ensuring efficient use of federal funding to sustain and scale existing programs to their fullest potential.” [2]
The accelerated nature of the proposed Health Innovation Working Group also draws from the short-term successes of the Obama administration’s “Open Government Initiative” where, on his first day in Office, President Obama signed the “Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government” that sought to usher in a new era of open and accountable government that was meant to bridge the gap between the American people and their government. [3] Akin to this initiative, President Trump can draw from this as well as other successful “Day One” (Jan 20th) strategies by emphasizing the importance of more inclusive and open government charged with ensuring optimal health outcomes during his presidency and beyond.
While noting these short-terms successes, the long-term effects of the ‘Open Government Initiative’ and others like them have failed to adopt, adapt and integrate lasting institutional practices on par with President Nixon’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). A council within the Executive Office of the President that still to this day is a champion of interagency collaboration by coordinating “the federal government’s efforts to improve, preserve, and protect America’s public health and environment.” [4] Towards this end, the proposed Health Innovation Working group leverages long-term trends of single and multi-agency programs with a specific emphasis on bringing the ‘health’ practices of HHS and the collaborative ‘innovation’ trends of EDA and NSF into direct correspondence with USDA programs. The goal is simple: healthy soils = healthy people.
Key to accelerating America’s health transition is the immediate launch of a Health Innovation Challenge Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) that will leverage a central trend found within many cities across the US called an “Innovation District.” [5] Providing a seamless integration into NSF’s “Regional Innovation Engines” and EDA’s “Regional Technology and Innovation Hub” programs, the natural evolution of these innovation trends have begun to form a lens by which food innovation districts can be launched through USDA supported food hubs, farmers markets, STEAM-based school gardens and the like. This standing infrastructure serves as an optimal platform for accelerating America’s health transition with measurable results within 2-years.
GROUP FORMATION
Following President Trump signing a “Memorandum on Health Innovation” (Jan 20th), the formation of the Health Innovation Working Group should prompt participating agencies to initiate the development and implementation of a ‘Health Innovation Directive’ that provides strategic steps towards ensuring optimal health outcomes by setting forth steps in biennial ‘Health Innovation Action Plans’ (HIAP) that would be available on each participating agency’s ‘Health Innovation’ landing page as well as reflected in their Strategic Plans that extend beyond the Trump administration’s 4-year term. [6]
As a part of the initial 2025 ‘Health Innovation Directive,’ each agency’s HIAP should describe at least one specific, newly integrated health innovation initiative that it is currently implementing (or that will be implemented before the next update of the directive). One suggested “Catalyst Initiative” mentioned below would be an ‘accelerated approach’ to optimizing Bionutrient Food production, delivery and consumption that encourages interagency collaboration between USDA (infrastructure), EDA (innovation), NIH (research) and others. By mid-2026, the development of these agency specific HIAPs should be accompanied by an inter-agency ‘Health Innovation Memo’ that provides an overview of a select number of core ‘best practices’ which emphasize the government’s role as an “active facilitator” to advance the President’s Strategy for Health Innovation. [7]
Additionally, these plans and ‘best practices’ should be linked to a general strategic focus of the Health Innovation Working Group to end the chronic health epidemic; including but not limited to NIH back-filling research gaps and HHS defining immediate best practices via FQHC interventions along with launching an accelerated health and wellness approach to urban-rural development called a “food innovation district.” [8] Central to the development and release of the initial directive and preceding memo, agencies will formulate an interagency process for launching a beta “Data Platform” described below to ensure cross-sector collaboration to optimally aggregate federal data. [9]
In accordance with the U.S Government Accountability Office’s “Leading Practices to Enhance Interagency Collaboration and Address Crosscutting Challenges,” the following roadmap should be adopted that leverages key CFO agency expertise such as: [10] 1) USDA – Food Infrastructure and Regional Farmer Support; 2) EDA – Food Innovation Districts as Regional Innovation Hubs; 3) NSF – Agricultural Tech Engines; [11] 4) NIH – Medical Research; 5) HHS – Direct Services; as well as non-CFO agency expertise such as: 6) Peace Corps – Facilitate the Development of Food Innovation Districts; 7) National Endowment of the Arts – STEAM based Education.
PLEASE NOTE CITATIONS 11-20 ABOVE
"I dream of a world where the process of growing food regenerates the land, revitalizes rural communities, and facilitates a world where food improves our health.”
- John Kempf, AEA Founder and Chief Vision Officer
CATALYST INITIATIVE
Comparable to superfood, Bionutrient Food is a result of specific and scalable regenerative agricultural practices that increase the nutrient density of food above and beyond what organic methods can produce. Utilizing some of the most advanced regenerative agriculture methods that include Bionutrient Institute’s suggested ‘soil remineralization’ approach as well as Advancing Eco Agriculture’s (AEA) crop protocols – includes seed inoculants, soil primers and foliar sprays – Bionutrient Food is the Gold Standard of superfoods. This Gold Standard is due to the fact that a typical superfood’s nutritional profile (e.g., polyphenols found in blueberries and kale) are substantially increased (sometimes by 100% or greater) through proper soil management and thus the benefits for human health and wellbeing are increased as well.
To fulfill President Trump’s mandate of achieving “measurable impacts” toward ending chronic disease within two years, HHS, USDA and other agencies must facilitate the emergence of a Health Innovation Working Group charged with launching strategic Health Innovation HUBs across the U.S. To accomplish this, the inter-agency taskforce will develop specific and scalable regenerative agricultural practices, community-based food hubs, and optimized food distribution models in accordance with proven economic strategies. In parallel with this federal strategy, several states already have the needed infrastructure to launch urban-based Food Innovation Districts (FID) designed to increase the nutrient density of food and distribution above and beyond current standard organic and conventional methods.
| Problem |
- Agencies and nutrition guidelines have been compromised by the industries they are supposed to regulate, undermined by conflicted research interest and lack of open-source data sharing and collaboration.
- Low or nonexistent consumer demand for Bionutrient Food.
- Lack of collaborative efforts to scale soil-to-consumer supply chains.
- Lack of systemic coordination due to pronounced silos between economic, education, agricultural and health sectors at the local, state and federal level.
|Strategy|
- Leverage proven Williamson Health & Wellness FQHC model that lowered type-2 diabetes at an accelerated rate (2yrs). This can immediately be replicated within HRSA’s robust FQHC network.
- Idea Village Accelerator Model (e.g., Entrepreneurship Week) informs the formation and launch of an inter-agency strategy that connects agropreneurship, health and food through a iHUB strategy. iHUBs will produce measurable results for reducing the chronic illness epidemic within 2-4 years.
- The iHUB model will leverage emerging FID model to accelerate America’s health transition.
The Proven Solution: Establishment of a Health Innovation Working Group charged with leveraging a unique approach to inter-agency collaboration that links health agencies (HHS & NIH), economic development agencies (EDA & NSF) with food and farming agencies (USDA & EPA). This interagency collaboration will enhance, amplify and most importantly accelerate its impact while reducing stand-up costs associated with the development of new programs. To accomplish this, our novel Food Innovation District (w/ iHUB) approach will optimize resource use, accelerate implementation, and minimizes duplication of efforts, ensuring efficient use of federal funding to sustain and scale existing programs (e.g., EDA ‘Regional Innovation Hubs’ and NSF ‘Ag-Tech Engines’) to their fullest potential.
“Only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.”
- Robert F. Kennedy, United States Attorney General
DATA PLATFORM
Community Resiliency is the ability of a community to prepare for anticipated natural hazards, adapt to changing conditions, and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions. In short, it’s a way for communities to adapt and grow after a disaster. When we take into consideration the global impact of COVID-19 along with other lurking disasters associated with the existential risks of chronic illness, soil depletion, artificial intelligence along with the growing epidemic of mental illness, community resiliency becomes much more than a matter of risks assessment such as those measured by FEMA’s National Risk Index. Above and beyond enhancing the ability of communities to plan for and manage disasters and adapt to changing environments, community resiliency is about bringing together Social Determinants of Health such as food access with the emerging science of Trauma Resiliency in order to re-boot America’s collective nervous system on a psychoneuroimmunological (PNI) level.
To achieve President Trump’s mandate to quantify the “measurable impacts” of federal and state efforts toward ending chronic disease within two years, HHS, USDA and other agencies must facilitate the emergence of a Health Innovation Working Group charged with launching the Resilient Community Index (RCI). Co-designed to optimally aggregate federal and state data from a diverse pool of agencies along with institutional and university partners, the RCI’s dynamic architecture also empowers community stakeholders to engage with data to ensure measurable impact from the bottom-up. Leveraging this ‘emergent’ (top-down/bottom-up) approach to quantifying ‘measurable impacts,’ the RCI will play a key role for national Health Innovation HUBs (iHUB) to assess, identify and proliferate the use of proven community resiliency strategies that will accelerate America’s health transition.
| Problem |
- Lack of interagency as well as local, state and federal coordination to optimally aggregate data.
- No coordinated efforts to engage in Participatory Action Research (PAR) methods to ensure that community knowledge and expertise are central to the data collection and analysis processes.
- Lack of data transparency with American citizens through a digitally accessible platform.
| Strategy |
- Development and launch of a cutting-edge, AI-driven Resilient Community Index that provides community members, medical practitioners and institutional investors the ability to assess the real-world impact of a given intervention strategy.
- Integrate RCI platform into inter-agency Health Innovation Challenge FOA to optimize national iHUB accelerator strategy.
- Equip emerging iHUBs across the US with pilot RCI platform to accelerate its development and use across the US.
- Launch cross-sector optimization strategies designed to assess, identify and proliferate proven intervention strategies.
- Develop a robust AI+Ethics strategy for the research and development of RCI’s digital architecture.
The Proven Solution: Data plays a ubiquitous role in encouraging cross-sector collaboration between the health, economic, agricultural and community development sectors. Typically, these sectors work independently in ways that discourage collaboration and thus forgo empowering communities with participatory data strategies and practices that will ensure optimal health outcomes. Towards this end, the establishment of a Health Innovation Working Group charged with leveraging a unique approach to inter-agency collaboration that links health data (HHS & NIH), economic development data (EDA & NSF) with food and farming data (USDA & EPA) will serve as a national catalyst for encouraging cross-sector collaboration. By integrating the RCI, this highly integrative platform will enhance, amplify and most importantly accelerate America’s health transition.
CITATIONS:
- White House, “Report to the President from The White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council,” Trump Administration, December 2019, https://opportunityzones.hud.gov/sites/opportunityzones.hud.gov/files/documents/OZ_One_Year_Report.pdf
- National Security Technology Accelerator, “What Can Interagency Collaboration Accomplish?,” NSTA Blog, August 28, 2024, OTA Government Contracting | Access Innovation - NSTXL
- The White House, “Transparency and Open Government: Memorandum for the Heads of the Executive Departments and Agencies,” Obama Administration, January 21, 2009, Transparency and Open Government | whitehouse.gov
- The White House, “Council on Environmental Quality,” whitehouse.gov, accessed November 10, 2024, Council on Environmental Quality | The White House
- Martin Neil Baily and Nicholas Montalbano, “Clusters and Innovation Districts: Lessons from the United States Experience,” Economic Studies at Brookings Institutions (2018).
- For a working example see: The White House, “Open Government Working Group,” Obama Administration, accessed November 9, 2024, Open Government Working Group | The White House ; additionally, see note 17 below for more about Health Innovation Directive.
- For a working example see: Aneesh Chopra, “Memorandum for the National Science & Technology Council Committee on Technology,” White House Office of Science and Technology, June 8, 2011, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/openinnovation_memo0611_finalv4.pdf
- Nicholas Dansby, Zane Grennell, Michelle Leppek, Sean McNaughton, Marlon Phillips, Kirstie Sieloff, and Claire Wilke, “Food Innovation Districts: A Land Use Tool for Communities Seeking to Create and Expand a Regional Food Industry,” Michigan State University, April 27, 2012, https://ced.msu.edu/upload/Planning%20Uploads/FoodInnovationAman1.pdf
- For a working example of this see FEMA, “National Risk Index: Technical Documentation,” US Department of Homelad Security, March, 2023, https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_national-risk-index_technical-documentation.pdf
- U.S. Governmental Accountability Office, “Government Performance Management: Leading Practices to Enhance Interagency Collaboration and Address Crosscutting Challenges,” GAO-23-105520, May 24, 2023, Government Performance Management: Leading Practices to Enhance Interagency Collaboration and Address Crosscutting Challenges | U.S. GAO
- National Science Foundation, “NSF Leads a $35M Federal Investment in Future Agricultural Technologies and Solutions,” Biden Administration, February 6, 2024, https://new.nsf.gov/news/nsf-leads-35m-federal-investment-future
- Ensures the administration’s commitment to addressing America’s chronic disease epidemic.
- Agencies will be represented by senior-level officials in the Working Group and tasked to launch a national Health Innovation Accelerator Strategy.
- Submission of Letters of Intent with selection of winners announced on March 28th.
- FOA finalists submit complete proposal with selection of winners announced on April 25th.
- The White House, “Using Prizes to Engage Citizen Solvers: A Progress Report,” Obama Administration, May 7, 2014, Using Prizes to Engage Citizen Solvers: A Progress Report | whitehouse.gov
- NIH and HHS outlines how to take immediate, specific steps to achieve key milestones to end America’s chronic disease epidemic. For a working example see: Peter Orszag, “Open Government Directive: Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies,” Obama Administration, December 8, 2009, Open Government Directive | The White House
- Developed in parallel with the above directive, the iterative biennial plans would include public comments on the plan, self-evaluation, and independent plan assessment. This would include but would not be limited to details on congressional requests, open standards, dataset calendar, program task schedule and additional editorial updates. For a working example see: USDA, “United States Department of Agriculture Open Government Plan Version 4.0,” Obama Administration, 2010, https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/usda-open-gov-plan-v4.0.pdf
- Per requirement of 2025 FOA, launch of yearlong collaborative-competition between national Health Innovation Hubs that leverages gaming scenarios such as walking programs, nutrient density of food, local food production and consumption, etc. For a working example see: Mingo Country Diabetes Coalition, “National Lunch Walk Challenge,” Sustainable Williamson Vimeo, 2013, National Lunch Walk Challenge
- See note seven above. This memo would focus on the development of a resilient community index (RCI) dashboard that brings together NIH data with Health Innovation Hubs to further accelerate MAHA strategy.
- AI+Ethics would play a key role in the development and launch of RCI. Please note that RCI whitepaper is forthcoming.