Evidence & Impact
Food is medicine. Here is the evidence.
Every figure here comes from a peer-reviewed study. We synthesize the impact for the people who can act on it, health-system leaders weighing a program and policymakers weighing a bill, rather than listing results for an academic audience.
in first-year U.S. health-care savings if medically tailored meals reached all 10.4 million eligible adults
Deng et al., Health Affairs, 2025fewer hospitalizations for adults receiving medically tailored meals, and 20% fewer emergency-department visits
Hager et al., Nature Medicine, 2026cardiovascular events preventable over ten years if produce prescriptions reached adults with diabetes and food insecurity
Wang et al., J. Am. Heart Assoc., 2023Medically tailored meals
Fewer hospitalizations, lower cost, real-world proof.
In Massachusetts’ Medicaid demonstration, adults who received medically tailored meals for about six months were measured against matched comparators across eleven health systems.
Massachusetts Medicaid, measured results
Scaled to the nation
A 50-state model estimates that if medically tailored meals reached all 10.4 million eligible U.S. adults, the health-care system would save $23.7 billion in the first year alone, while preventing about 2.6 million hospitalizations. Over five years, projected savings reach $111 billion.
Deng et al., Health Affairs, 2025Produce prescriptions
Preventing cardiovascular events at national scale.
Produce prescriptions pair a clinical referral with fruits and vegetables for the patients who benefit most, adults with both a diet-related condition and limited food access.
cardiovascular events preventable over ten years if produce prescriptions reached the 6.5 million U.S. adults with diabetes and food insecurity
Wang et al., J. Am. Heart Assoc., 2023cardiovascular events preventable over patients’ lifetimes in the same population, a projection FIMI’s cost-of-food analysis leads with
Wang et al., J. Am. Heart Assoc., 2023The business case
Evidence a payer or a health system can build a decision on.
Building the economic case, cost, cost-effectiveness, and return, is one of FIMI’s six focus areas. The through-line across the studies above is consistent: food is medicine improves outcomes while offsetting much or all of its own cost.
Explore further
The full peer-reviewed record behind these figures, 157 publications with complete citations, is searchable and filterable.
Browse 157 publicationsPut the evidence to work
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