The world is experiencing changes in food and sharing during the pandemic. Food shortages in the spring and being confined together have spurred changes. Sustainability scientist Alexandra Brewis-Slade saw COVID-19 as an obvious point to jump in on questions of how illness and other crises worsen food insecurity.
The founding director of the Center for Global Health and a President’s Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change said the center identifies a key theme each year, one that they believe can reinvent and reimagine global health. “This year it was a focus on the human experience of food insecurity, working with nutritionist and food security expert Meg Bruening in the College of Health Solutions,” Brewis-Slade said.
Brewis-Slade and Amber Wutich, director of the Center for Global Health and also a President’s Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change, were doing research with partners in Puerto Rico to understand how people were working together within communities, as part of work with the international Household Water Insecurity Experiences research collaboration, for which the Center for Global Health is a key partner. Bruening and Wutich are both sustainability scientists.