Harkin on Wellness Symposium 2023

During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare systems were overrun with patients and supply chain issues disrupted our access to healthy foods. Community leaders and organizations responded by creating new approaches to address the relationship between food and health. These new approaches include the growth of food systems coalitions and councils working to shape, advise, and implement food policy. These groups also worked to increase opportunities and reduce barriers to healthy outcomes at the regional level.

This year’s Harkin on Wellness (HOW) Symposium will showcase the work being done at state and local levels to improve people’s lives by reimagining the food system from farm to table and everywhere in between.

We are pleased to welcome Deputy Under Secretary for the USDA’s Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, Stacy Dean and Dr. Walter Willett, M.D., Dr. P.H., Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and co-chair of the EAT-Lancet Commission as the keynote speakers for HOW 2023. Additional speakers will include experts on the environmental impacts of food production and on local approaches to improving health and wellness.